


The Mirror Room

by Beleriandings



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dancing, Espionage, Gen, Highly speculative, Multi, court intrigue, post episode 56
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2019-12-30 17:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: A ball is to be held in honour of the new heroes of the Kryn dynasty, the Mighty Nein. But there's a spy in the midst of the court, and the Bright Queen has given Beauregard the task of finding them.





	1. Chapter 1

Beau stood patiently alone in the middle of the throne room. The space seemed expansive around her, and she has not missed the guards positioned in each corner as she came in. She did not look away now though. “You asked to see me?”

The Bright Queen regarded Beau with unearthly eyes that seemed to go right through her, missing nothing. “Indeed. I’ve called you here because I have heard that you, Miss Beauregard, have a certain skillset.”

“…True” said Beau. She saw no point in denying it, but she was still wary. “I’d like to know where you got that information at some point, but yeah.”

“I got it from observation” said the Queen. “….Amongst other things. Your…monastic order is not unknown to our agents, both in the Dwendalian Empire and at home.”

“Riiiight.” Beau folded her arms. “So. What  are you asking me to do with this… _skillset_ of mine? I won’t go against my friends, if that’s it.”

The Queen’s mouth barely quirked into a smile at the corner. “Please, do not worry. You and your friends have done a great service to me and my realm already, and I will not have any of them harmed. In fact, this should help to ensure that.” She looked Beau in the eye once more. “It has come to my understanding that there is a Dwendalian spy amongst my court. Their exact purpose and plan of operation is not known to us, but they are certainly no friend to you and yours.” She caught Beau’s grimace, and nodded. “I’m glad you understand me. If they are to act, it seems to me that they might act tonight, while the ball is in progress. So, much as I regret you having to miss an event in the honour of you and your group, I would like you to find them, and bring them to me. Do you think you can do that?”

Beau’s mind worked through the possibilities, even as she forced herself to smile. “Yes,” she said, because it was the only thing she could say. “Yes, of course.”

* * *

Beau tugged awkwardly at the collar of her cravat. Despite Jester’s reassurances - said with a mouthful of pins, while braiding Beau’s hair - she still felt a little out of place in formalwear. At least she didn’t have to wear a dress, she thought. She was admittedly much happier in the elegant tailored robe in - of course - deep blue, with tall, shiny boots and brocade breeches, but she felt hampered, unable to move as she liked. She wished she had her staff with her, at least, but it probably would be seen as a bit threatening to carry a big stick to a fancy party like this.

She scanned the room. At least there were a lot of people to stare at; the main look that the court seemed to favour was “intimidatingly, androgynously beautiful” which was absolutely fine as far as Beau was concerned.

(She was not ashamed to say that she liked a woman who looked like they could crush her, if it came to it.)

But there was also the distinct possibility that one of them actually _would_ crush her, if she didn’t handle this sensitively. Or her friends. Which was not great. After all, sensitivity had never really been her strong point.

She let her eyes wander once more over the room. She spotted Jester, Caleb and Fjord first: they were talking to some drow courtier or other, and even Beau could tell he was, objectively, handsome. Jester was chatting animatedly to him, looking absolutely beautiful in shell-pink lace and ruffles, taking a handful of miniature marzipan confections she had swiped from the table earlier from her pocket, and, with utmost grace, stuffing them into her mouth without missing a beat of conversation. 

Beau couldn’t help but smile at this. She watched as Jester prodded Caleb beside her, trying to bring him into the conversation. Beau thought that barring the fact that Caleb looked about as unenthusiastic about this party as Jester was enjoying it - and the fact that he was the only other human here - she might not have recognised Caleb, dressed as he was in a dark blue satin tunic and matching stiff-collared coat trimmed with copper, of the style favoured by the court. His hair was clipped, washed and brushed. As it was though, his mannerisms gave him away, as did the book holsters awkwardly stuffed in under his coat. That had been a point of compromise, negotiated by Nott and Jester as the price for getting him to look fancy.

Also, there was the fact that was looking at his feet, with a look on his face as though he had transcended everyday social anxiety and gone straight to extreme nausea. Or maybe he was just looking through Frumpkin’s spider eyes from the rafters and couldn’t see what was in front of him; sometimes, it was difficult to tell one way or the other.

Fjord was in the middle, presumably attempting to keep the conversation from going off the rails entirely. He was frowning as he looked over at Jester, clearly trying to keep the peace while looking vaguely uncomfortable. As Beau watched, Jester took his arm and leaned against him a little, while also giggling at something the man they were talking to had said. Beau gave a sigh; she didn’t think she even wanted to speculate what was going on there. She’d ask Jester about it later, she thought, in their room.

She looked around again, to spot Nott and Yeza spinning on the dancefloor. For one thing, she still wasn’t entirely used to seeing Nott - no, _Veth_ \- as a halfling, but it was also partly for another reason: she looked _happy_ , Beau thought. She had never seen Nott this happy, and she certainly hadn’t seen her let down her guard like this. Yeza’s face was glowing too, and in this moment, despite everything, they seemed to have eyes only for each other. 

Well, she would let them be happy, she thought. But someone needed to keep watch, and so tonight at least, she would do that.

There was a table of food in the corner, and by it she could see Yasha and Caduceus, eating fancy canapes and chatting in low voices, Caduceus’ ears twitching slightly to the beat of the music filtering across from the open door of the ballroom. Yasha seemed on edge without her sword, Beau thought. She understood. Beau allowed her gaze to linger on Yasha just a little longer; she was dressed in a fine, floor-length tunic of shimmering grey-blue, her hair bound high on her head, showing off the muscles in her neck and shoulders beautifully.

Beau mentally shook herself. She was not here to stare at Yasha. She was here to find Dairon again - and why had Dairon come here, of all places? - and tip her off, while also finding some way to pretend to make the Queen think that she had managed to get rid of the traitor. It wouldn’t be anywhere near so easy as it was in Asarius, she knew.

That was what was important: that Dairon was safe, and was warned of the danger. _If she could make sure of that, then maybe -_

“Well now. What is one of our well-traveled heroes of the hour doing standing all alone in the corner of the room? This simply will not do. With respect, may I keep you company?”

Beau blinked. The voice had seemed to come out of nowhere, and had startled her out of her thoughts. She turned to look behind her to the person who had spoken, and caught her breath. “Ahhh” she breathed, a little tongue-tied by the sudden appearance before her of one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen; but not only that, this woman seemed to have a presence that was almost physical, her eyes burning as though she was a lantern lit from within. “Um. Yeah” said Beau, trying to keep from tripping over her words as she stared back. “Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, knock yourself out. …I mean, uh. Figure of speech. Don’t, you know, actually do that.”

“I shall try to avoid it.” The woman laughed lightly, as Beau cursed her dumb mouth. “Tell me, are you enjoying the delights our queen’s court has to offer?” She smiled, in a way that hid some other layer of intention, Beau thought. “This ball is in your honour, after all.”

“I’m enjoying it very much” said Beau cautiously, not taking her eyes off the woman. She hadn’t seen her come in, in the parade of courtiers who had all been individually introduced by the herald earlier, their titles tediously listed. Beau was sure she would have paid more attention if this woman had been amongst them. “Um” she said, already distracted again by this stranger’s eyes, quicksilver grey with a slight purplish sheen, with bright silver lashes like moths’ wings. Not piercing turquoise like the Queen’s eyes, but with some of the same sharpness and brilliance, and a not insignificant unsettling quality to them that Beau found impossible to place. Not necessarily bad, though. In fact, Beau found that she could barely keep from looking at this woman, now that she had begun. The long robe she wore was sleeveless, but high at the neck, a sheer cape pinned at the throat with a brooch made of intricately braided copper, set with a bright stone. It was the only colour on her apart from her deep, midnight-blue skin, a dusting of freckles like stars across her face and her bare shoulders. She wore long, tight gloves of dusty pearl satin, that reached her upper arms. “Very much indeed.”

“I am so glad. You and your group, despite your…origins, have done so much for us. More than you know.” Her eyes met Beau’s, then roamed over her face with open curiosity. “But I find myself curious. I would love to understand more of the fabled Mighty Nein. I am convinced that the gossip of the court is nowhere near as interesting as the truth.”

“It’s probably much more interesting” said Beau, cautiously. “But you know, I’ve also been told you shouldn’t trust just anything people tell you.”

A slight smile. “I’ve heard the same.” She opened her mouth as though to make another remark, but at that moment, the dance being played came to an end, the musicians finishing on an ornate flourish. The woman’s smile returned. “Ah. May I have the next dance?”

Beau hesitated, darting a glance at her friends; none of them seemed to be paying her any mind, but she had a position here to fulfill, after all. She couldn’t be getting distracted by a beautiful stranger.

As Beau watched, said stranger began to slowly remove one of her gloves.

When the satin reached her wrist and came over her hand, Beau gasped; on her finger, was a flash of a ring. Nothing special; no jewels were set in the plain silver band, but it set her mind racing. Was it what she thought? The last time she had seen a ring like that had been in Asarius, and Dairon had been the one wearing it.

… _Perhaps this woman was not a mere distraction_ , Beau thought, leaning forward to kiss the proffered hand. It seemed right to do so, in that moment, but Beau’s mind was racing, calculating. She let her lips linger on the knuckles for just a moment, before straightening up, meeting the woman’s eye again.

She was about to glance down at the ring once more, when the woman smiled, pulling the glove back over her hand and up her arm with a swift flourish. 

“Shall we dance?”

Just as the dance began, she felt the woman’s hand come up to the small of her back, resting there while her other came up to grasp Beau’s hand. The satin felt so soft under her callused palm, the softest texture she had felt in so, so long.

At least, she should carry on with this long enough to find out what the ring meant, she thought. She was investigating. This was all part of the plan.

The musicians began to play, and the two began to dance. As they did, the stranger leading her with expert grace, Beau squinted. Could this really be Dairon? She didn’t know. _If it was, did that make it weird that their faces were so close together, as they spun in circles across the dance floor?_ She put that question determinedly aside; she couldn’t let it make her miss her footing, or her opportunity. Whatever it was an opportunity for: Beau didn’t quite know right now.

Beau didn’t know the dance, but it was easy with her partner leading her in a whirling dance of steps in threes. The music was strange and chromatic, the chords and harmonies different from what she was used to in the Empire, but with the woman’s body close to hers, so the glimmering layers of her dress fluttered around both of them, she barely heard it anyway. She barely breathed, light-headed and light on her feet and her heart running at double speed, and for a while, time seemed suspended around the two of them as they danced.

All the while, Beau was trying to get a look at the ring she had seen. But the woman’s hand was on the small of Beau’s back; she could feel it there, firm and warm. Sending fire up and down her spine, that was nothing to do with her mission. 

Each time they spun, the woman’s eyes met hers, with a slight twist of a smile at the corner of her ink-stained lips, her bright eyes sliding over Beau’s face and down to her neck, where she was beginning to grow warm under her layers of clothing.

The dance ended, as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the two of them slightly breathless, a slight flush of deep indigo creeping up the woman’s cheeks. Her eyes never left Beau, and Beau’s never left hers.

“…My dear-”

“That was-”

They both stopped, as they spoke over each other.

“You first.”

“No, you first,” breathed Beau.

“Very well.” The woman smiled. “I think, perhaps, this room is a little crowded, don’t you?” She leaned in a little closer, whispering in Beau’s ear, so Beau could feel the ghost of her warm breath; they were almost exactly the same height. “You do look so handsome in… _cobalt_ blue-” Beau’s heartbeat caught in her chest “- but it would be a shame if you were to grow faint from the heat. Would you be agreeable to continuing this…elsewhere?”

“Y-yeah” said Beau, half choking on the word. “Yes, I’d like that.”

* * *

It didn’t take them long to find an empty room, along a bright, mirrored corridor; the palace had many, a winding maze of mirrors that the woman seemed to know perfectly, but in which Beau was quite certain she would have gotten completely lost on her own. She tried, dutifully, to remember the turnings they took away from the noise of the ballroom, but with the mirrors and the many branching passages, she was certain she must have gotten it wrong, somehow. Besides, her mind was awhirl with anticipation, a large proportion of her processing devoted to the warm, satin-clad hand grasping hers, leading her forward.

Underneath the cloth, she could feel the solid metal band of a ring.

Finally they entered a room, and the door closed behind them, and they were alone. It was a beautiful room, light from outside filtering in through high, shuttered windows with triptych-like shutters, mirrored on the inside, making the interior of the room appear full of copies of the two of them, repeated endlessly into the distance.

But Beau had only eyes for the woman in front of her, soft silvery lashes brushing against freckled cheeks the colour of ink as she met Beau’s gaze, half-lidded but yet still with that burning steel behind the silver.

And then in another instant they were drawing close together, and as they did each of their reflections came together, lips meeting in an endless string of kisses, repeating over and over as though cast in the boundless possibilities that lived within the dodecahedron. Her lips tasted like something herbal, or vaguely floral, Beau thought, with what little of her mind was still able to think at all with the heated longing that was rushing through her.

After what felt like both eternity and an instant, Beau drew back from the kiss, her heart quickening as she stared into the woman’s eyes, transfigured as they were. She could feel her heart in her throat, as the stranger met her gaze, staring back intently, as though waiting for something. Beau’s breathing hitched at that, imagination immediately running ahead of her, taking it as permission for her to let loose the tide of all it had held back. If it _was_ Dairon, then… all those times they had sparred together, muscled arms and brown skin slick with sweat against her own, hands wandering. _Strong, clever fingers with scars across the knuckles tugging out the tie of Beau’s hair and twisting through it, pulling her head back forcefully to bare her throat_ ….

This woman was almost the complete opposite in every way.. _.and yet…and yet…._

And yet. Beau blinked. The woman was still looking back at her expectantly, one pale, sparkling eyebrow cocked, like a challenge. And beautiful though she was - and she was beautiful, her starlit, midnight skin and the shimmer of her when she moved, curls of silver falling across bare shoulders - it made Beau impatient; she wanted the real thing, the real Dairon she had come to know, had come, she realised, to want so deeply that it made her _ache_. If it wasn’t her, then, well, at least she had learned something about herself today, something that surely this stranger could very pleasurably make her forget for a while at least.

 _They couldn’t_ , said some part of her, some rational part that was still clinging on to common sense. Not here. She couldn’t drop her guard, there was too much at stake. She was on a mission for the Bright Queen. But that part was growing quieter in her mind; she was beginning to feel a little lightheaded, as her eyes went back to the woman’s lips in front of her; a little parted - in anticipation of more? - going from darkest midnight to a gentle purple colour, slick and shiny where they parted. The disguise, if that was what it was, was remarkably detailed; it made her wonder whether the detail extended further than just her lips.

Time to find out, she thought, decisiveness pushing through the growing cloud that surrounded her. Beau ran the tip of her tongue quickly, teasingly over her own lips, waiting as long as she could bear; she could still taste a very faint herbal flavour there, a taste that was another discovery, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted _more_ , but still she stilled herself; if the stranger was waiting for her to make the next move, Beau had half a mind to _make_ her wait. _A test of patience; hadn’t Dairon subjected her to enough of those, in their time together?_ But that depended on Beau being able to wait herself, a feat of willpower that she could only hold for a moment.

And so, once more she leaned in, faster this time, inhaling the smell of the strange and foreign perfume that the ladies of the Kryn court so favoured. _Such meticulous detail_. Quickly, Beau closed the gap between them.

At that moment, several things happened, in very quick succession. First, the window on the other side of the room slammed open, making Beau jolt backwards and curse, the woman whirling to the side. A moment later, a throwing star flew out of nowhere, slamming into the wall between them from the window, shattering the mirror behind. Beau went tense, already raising her fists, when she gasped.

For there, climbing in through the window, was Dairon.

“Beauregard!” snarled Dairon. Her face was mostly hidden by a hood, but Beau knew her voice well enough. And Beau could see her eyes, reflecting the light from the windows; they burned with anger, as well as genuine fear. “Get away from her! She’s a - ”

But at that moment the woman beside Beau let out a hiss of frustration, reaching into a deep pocket of her robe and pulling out what looked like a small iron rod, which she aimed at the Dairon at the window like a weapon. Beau flinched as arcane words burst from her mouth, and a spell arced through the air, distort and weaving patterns through the space. Dairon sprang aside and missed it, throwing another dart, which struck the woman in the arm, making her gasp as blood spurted onto the bright cloth of her dress, soaking her glove too. The woman regained her composure a moment later, but by that point Dairon was across the room, aiming a swing at her head, which hit her with a sickening crack.

Beau tried to force herself into action, to do something, but she felt, somehow, befuddled, her limbs not responding to her as she tried to make herself move. To do _something_ , even though she didn’t really understand what was happening. _She had mentioned cobalt… and the ring….Beau had thought…she had been almost sure. But if Dairon was here, then who_ -

“Beau, get her ring!” Dairon’s voice rang in her head, rattling around a little as though Beau had been the one whose skull had just been wrung like a bell. She could feel her senses dulling; _why?_ Her mouth felt dry, the herbal taste filling it up suddenly, and her vision began to spin, but she forced herself to listen to Dairon’s words, to understand their meaning.

Beau lunged forward to the woman’s hand, where Dairon had her, pinned by the wrists and struggling. But she missed by what seemed like half a mile, weakness coming over her muscles in waves. Dairon grunted with the effort of holding her still as Beau fell half against the wall, struggling to hold her own weight up now. Dairon darted a glance down at Beau, half-prone on the floor now, real fear in her eyes. Overhead, she could see Dairon twist the other woman’s arm back in a lock, trying to wrench the ring off her hand. But she couldn’t see their faces from the angle she was at, only hear Dairon’s voice, filled with fury now. “Taking my ring was bad enough… but you will not _fucking_ touch my student! What did you do to her? Is this some sort of spell?”

A crack, as though of a fist connecting with flesh, and a few muffled curses in a language Beau didn’t understand. Then a reluctant voice, the same but different to that of the woman she had kissed. “I…ah,,, I have no - _ach_ \- no direct quarrel with you. The Cobalt Soul is no friend of the Assembly, but you are no traitor like her. Though - ah, you may consider yourself one, when you return to -”

She broke off, as Dairon twisted her arm. “So you’re from the Assembly?” She glared, twisting harder as the woman resisted Dairon’s compulsion to tell the truth, biting down on her lip. Dairon made a noise of frustration. “Okay. Start with this. _What the fuck did you cast on her?_ ”

The woman laughed, a bright sound despite all, “I cast nothing. Poison is useful that way…it does not require concentration, you see. It should wear off soon -” … _the taste of her lips_ , Beau thought, as her limbs locked up and she slid down to the floor, paralysed, unable to do anything but stare. The other woman was still fighting the grapple, though Dairon was clearly stronger than her. But Beau could see what she was doing, from where she lay; her hand, moving in a somatic gesture. Dairon noticed a moment later, pinning her harder to the wall by the hand now, rather than the wrist. The woman smiled grimly. “Rest assured that if my people wanted her dead, she would be…”

Dairon snarled and - finally - wrenched the ring from he finger, one glove coming with it in a spray of blood. And as she did, the woman transformed.

Beau saw, with narrowing vision, a woman with short-cropped brown hair, a similar strong nose and profile to the drow. But the features were human now. She no longer wore that shimmering dress but simple, pale grey robes bound tight with belts carrying many small pouches and bags and vials, and her remaining full-length white glove. As well as a thick, leatherbound book strapped to the side of her waist in a holster that reminded her of nothing so much as -

Beau drew in a gasp. But she didn’t get time to think any further, as the woman’s hand was free now; Dairon had had to let it slip to get the ring off. All at once, a spell erupted from it, enfolding Dairon in lines of magical force that locked her limbs, making her movements stop, a shout that would have alerted the guards dying in her throat before it had time to become fully formed.

And just as soon as that, the woman slipped free from Dairon’s grasp, her paralysed body still frozen there with outstretched arms as the woman leaned down so that her face filled up most of Beau’s narrowing vision. Beau struggled to stay conscious, to move, to do anything as the toxin coursed through her veins, but all she could do was stare upwards, as the woman cradled her. Beau tried to spit in her face, but without the use of her muscles, all she could do was vaguely push forwards before slumping back down into her arms, pathetically weak.

“There is no point in struggling anymore” said the woman. Her voice was laced with a light twist of commanding magic, compelling Beau to submit, to acquiesce, to lie to down. As Beau watched, the woman took off the other glove; underneath, her arms were marked with scars.

Beau recognised those scars immediately. She had seen almost identical ones, whenever Caleb took the bandages off his forearms.

Her eyes widened slightly, as much as the paralysis would allow, even as she tried to voice a name. But it was no good; her voice wouldn’t work, her tongue numb and useless in her mouth. Yet the woman looming above her had no such difficulty. “I _suggest_ you stop fighting against it.” She said, glaring down with cold, dark eyes. Beau gritted her teeth, forcibly shaking the shackles of the spell off her mind, vain though she knew it was. “You have betrayed the empire, perhaps, but you still have a purpose to serve. And you will continue to live, until it is done.”

She tried to concentrate on something else, anything else; the woman’s accent had changed with the loss of her disguise she noticed. It was no longer the accent of the Kryn, but something more like Caleb’s accent. _Of course, it would be._

 _No, no, no no no_. She couldn’t let this happen. She tried to cry out again, at the very top of her voice, but even screaming, all that came as a sort of undignified whimper. The woman holding her glared down, tutting under her breath. Casually, she pressed a firm hand over Beau’s mouth, her face somewhere between disinterest and mild disgust. Out of the corner of her eye, Beau could see Dairon’s body twitching and spasming, as she struggled against the spell holding her to no avail. 

At last, at long last, Beau managed to get out one word, between the fingers muffling her. “A…Astrid….”

She gave an exasperated sigh, and her hand pressed down tighter, so Beau could barely breath, let alone speak or scream for help. “So, you know my name. Did you think that that would impress me, shock me perhaps? _Nein_. I know well enough how Bren has whispered his lies to you, filled you with his _weakness_.” Her face crumpled as though in pain for a moment, so quickly that Beau almost thought she had imagined it, before she regained her composure. “There is no point in this struggling. She cannot help you now. None of them can. You are alone…but _I_ am not.” She laid a hand on Beau’s cheek; the touch could almost have been called tender, had it not been for her other hand, that had not eased its crushing pressure on Beau’s mouth. Astrid leaned forward, over Beau, her face looming large as Beau felt arcane power well in both of the hands across her face. Power that wanted to push her over the edge of the blackness quickly narrowing her consciousness, a nudge in the direction of the inevitable. The oblivion of sleep seemed, suddenly, welcoming, even as Beau still tried to struggle. “ _Schlaf für mich_ ,” murmured a soft voice above her, “ _schlaf_ ….”

And that was the last thing Beau heard before the world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...................To....be.....continued.....? 
> 
>  
> 
> (.....I have an idea of where I want this to go but we'll see what canon gives us. But even then. EVEN THEN, there's always AU...)


	2. Chapter 2

When Beau awoke, it was dark. For a moment, she panicked, not knowing where she was and having no memory what had happened before; her head was pounding like a bad hangover, the back of her throat prickling, acrid with dehydration. She pushed herself up in the dark, her heart in her throat as she looked all around, still seeing nothing.

Had she gone blind? That was her first thought. Perhaps she had been drinking the product of someone’s dodgy still. That stuff could blind you, if you got it wrong. She’d heard all sorts of horror stories back home.

She levered herself up, head spinning nauseatingly: she was lying on a surface almost like polished stone: _like_ , but not the same. For a start it wasn’t as cold, but it wasn’t exactly warm either. It felt like smooth nothing. 

Equally disconcertingly, it was completely dark. _Oh!_ The thought came to her in a flash. _She could see in the dark, now._ Quickly, she fumbled on top of her head for the goggles, only to find them gone. 

_Of fucking course_. She immediately let her shoulders droop, feeling the braids in her hair, put there by Jester only a few short hours ago. She was still wearing the clothes that she had worn for the ball, only her jacket and boots were gone, she realised after a quick inventory, to make sure that at least all her body parts were still there. Which they were, but her whole body felt bruised, and she pressed her palms into her eyes as it all began to come back.

_The dance. The kiss, and the poison setting in. Dairon. Astrid._

_Then, blackness_.

She let out a snarl of frustration, flailing out with a punch that did not connect with anything.

After that, she sat for a long while, thinking. Sitting there in the dark, it was all she could do.

Or, not quite, maybe. After a while, she got up – her whole body protesting, still aching from the after effects of whatever Astrid had used to knock her out – and began to walk, blindly, with outstretched arms.

Eventually, and almost to her surprise, her fingertips collided with a wall, of the same smooth, unknowable material as the floor. She walked sideways along it, trailing her fingers along to find it gently curved. _Concave_. She carried on for a while; she must be in a circular room, she though, but by the way the wall curved it couldn’t be very big. If it was a circle, she must have been all the way around it several times by now, but she hadn’t come across anything that could be considered a door. Only the floor, and curving walls all the way around, the ceiling evidently higher than she could either jump or reach.

 _Fuck_. Beau tilted her head back, looking upwards even though that direction was as opaque as every other. If there was a way in – or out – of this place, then it must be up there. If it was, then maybe this wasn’t really a “way out” sort of situation.

She had heard of oubliettes, and bottle dungeons, and other such places – and she’d seen the inside of a few more conventional prison cells in her time – but actually being trapped in a place like this was outside of her realm of experience.

By which, she of course meant that she had no idea of how to escape. _If she had some rope, and a knife, or even one thing to hold onto_ … She even tried several times to climb one of the walls, starting a way back and putting the momentum of a running start into it, but it was no good; the wall was too smooth, and she only fell back down again, landing painfully on her coccyx.

She sat on the ground massaging her back as she thought about what to do. She wondered what had happened to Dairon; the last that Beau had seen of her, she had been standing paralysed, as much at Astrid’s mercy as Beau herself.

Dairon was still conscious though, Beau reminder herself, and far from defenseless, especially once the paralysis wore off; if Astrid was anything like Caleb, then a good solid opportunistic punch to the side of the head would be all it would take to knock her down, and then Dairon could find the others and get them to come rescue Beau. That was a little reassuring. But she still found herself worrying; not knowing was always worse.

And then, of course there were the others; now she thought about it, she was much more worried about them than she was about Dairon. She didn’t want them involved in this, though she supposed it was probably too late for that by now. She wondered if Astrid was here for Caleb; it was possible, Beau supposed, though if her mission was to take him out then surely it would have been much easier back in the Empire where he was just a ragged wanderer; people like that could easily be made to disappear and no one would miss them. It didn’t make sense to come for him here in the court of the Bright Queen herself, to try snatch him from under her protection.

No, Beau concluded. Astrid must be here for another reason. And Beau had an unpleasant feeling she knew exactly what that was. And Astrid likely had allies too; who knew how long she had been here, or how deep her cover went.

Well, Beau thought; at least she had fulfilled her mission, and found the spy at court. Very efficiently too, if she did say so herself. The Bright Queen would be very proud of her. Maybe.

Or at least, she would when Beau got out of…wherever she was now, and did something about it.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, pressing her fingers into her tightly closed eyes. She had too little information. The others could help her, she knew. But she had no idea how she might contact them, or even what to say that would help them find her. She didn’t know where she was.

Anyway, it was all academic anyway, because either way she had no idea how to contact them. She growled in her throat, frustrated, got up and threw a punch at the unyielding wall, sending a bolt of pain through her fist.

She was just cradling her throbbing hand, allowing herself to wallow just a little, when something else happened.

 _Light_. A sudden burst of light from above, dazzling to her after all this darkness. Just a flash of it, glimmering like firelight, and a sound of a cry, echoing strangely in the space. Immediately, Beau looked up, seeing an unfolding bright circle above, about the span of her outstretched arms. Above it, she could see at least two figures in silhouette, fast and fleeing as shadows against the relative brightness.

It all happened very quickly.

There was a cry, and then, a flash of shadow as a person fell _through_ the circle of light above, arms and legs flailing out as though to catch onto anything they could as they fell. But they caught nothing, and Beau only just managed to lunge to the side quickly enough that they did not fall on top of her. Instead they landed with a painful-sounding muffled crunch that sounded unpleasantly like breaking bones, on the floor beside her.

And in the time it had taken them to fall, the light above had gone out, plunging the chamber back into darkness again.

For a long while, Beau waited in the silence, wary. She could hear labored breathing, and it made her cautious, especially after everything else that had happened today.

She began to crawl on her hands and knees closer to the source of the sound, careful to move only inch by inch, to make as little sound as possible. At last she came close enough to touch; she reached out a hand gingerly, feeling soft fabric under her fingers. She moved her hand upwards to touch a face, feeling the roughness of a little stubble, feeling a shock of alarm when her fingers made contact with something sticky and warm that could only be blood. She could smell it too, the warm iron tang. She poked the place where the most blood seemed to be coming from, just at the hairline; when she got no reaction, she concluded that this person probably was really unconscious.

Emboldened, she ran her fingers through their hair, felt the shell of an ear.

A round, distinctly human ear.

She caught her breath. “…Caleb?” She patted his cheek, nervous as she listened to his pained breathing; there was an ominous-sounding liquid bubble to his breaths. _A fall like that could easily break a rib,_ _which could_ _puncture a lung_ … she shouldn’t have touched him, she thought, in mounting panic. “Caleb! Are you okay?”

There was no response.

Beau breathed out a huff of air through her clenched teeth, tense. Gingerly, she slipped her hand into the pocket of Caleb’s jacket, rifling through; like his usual battered and faded old coat, it had a lot of pockets, she remembered him specifically asking the fancy court tailor Jester had forced them all to go to to give him many pockets, much to the tailor’s chagrin and Nott’s approval.

Beau let out a frustrated noise, not finding what she wanted; everything here seemed to be spell components. She winced, as her hand made contact with something squishy she didn’t want to think about, then something small and dried and possibly once living, then a few sheets of folded paper – one of which gave her a paper cut - a handful of feathers, some chunks of crumbly broken incense. If he survived this, she thought grimly, they had to have a talk about organisational efficiency of random junk that Caleb kept. She knew he had a system but…this could be Jester or Caduceus looking for diamonds one day, she thought nervously. It may as well be, with the way that Caleb’s breaths were sounding.

Besides, it was still entirely dark, and doing this by touch alone wasn’t helping.

Throwing caution to the winds, Beau reached across the other side of him, gritting her teeth as she put her hand into the other pocket, trying to ignore the fact that the sounds of his breathing were growing more and more erratic.

Finally – finally – her hands touched the cool glass of a phial. She uncorked it, giving it a sniff; the familiar, strongly herbal scent of one of Caduceus’ homemade healing potions hit her nose.

( _And t_ _hank any gods that cared to claim responsibility that Caleb was fucking paranoid enough to carry a spare healing potion in his pocket to a fancy party_ , Beau thought, as she finally exhaled.)

She wasted no time in lifting up Caleb’s head – the back of which was also sticky with blood, her hand nearly slipping in it – sort of awkwardly propping him up on her knee, and pouring the potion into his mouth, pinching his nose hard so he had to swallow it.

Even so, he choked a little on it as he regained consciousness, cradled in her arms. She could hear him suck in a breath, a full one this time, as – so she hoped at least – the broken tissues and bones knitted back together, at least enough to keep him from dying on her.

( _Not again. Not like this, not in the dark. Not with the two of them all alone, and nothing she could do to save him_ \- )

She heard him cough, felt him stir in her arms. Then she felt him flinch, and gasp, and pull away from her so suddenly that the next noise he made was a cry of pain.

“No! You dumbass, you’ll start bleeding again!” Beau yelled at him, across the intervening space. She could hear him shuffling backwards away from her, but he seemed to have hit the opposite wall. “It’s me! It’s Beau.”

“ _Nein!_ ” he rasped back at her, “do not come any closer!”

To her alarm, she could see flame starting at the tips of his fingers, an orange glow illuminating his face; he looked utterly disturbed, eyes wide and filled with fear. “Caleb! Fucking stop it, it’s me, you’re safe. You’re okay! We’re both okay!” some of that was certainly debatable, she thought, but they could delve into that whole mess later.

The fire flared brighter in his hands, no longer just a small glow. Now, it illuminated their faces, casting them both in flickering flame. He blinked a few times, to try to get rid of the congealing blood that was running down over one of his eyes, rapidly gluing it half shut. He looked a mess, Beau thought. Then again, she probably did too. For a moment longer, he stared at her, and she stared back, meeting his gaze.

Then… “B-Beauregard…? You are… here too…?”

She let out her breath, unable to keep a smile of relief off her face. “Unfortunately, yeah. Hi Caleb, welcome back to the world. Also, you’re welcome for me probably saving your goddamn life, by the way.”

He swallowed, still wide-eyed with shock, though his breathing seemed to have evened out a little. “…Um. _Danke._ ”

“Right. Now, will you quit pointing your fire hands at me and explain to me what the _whole entire_ _fuck_ is happening, so we can figure out how to get out of it?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [...Meanwhile]

Jester, for her part, was having a good time at this party.

For all her misgivings about this place, for all her fear that she might never be able to return home – though Caleb had assured her that one day he’d be able to send her there, and she believed him, it was just, it might be a while – there were enjoyable aspects to being heroes of the dynasty; this fancy party, thrown in their honour, being chief amongst them. There were tasty snacks and pretty music and she got to pick out and wear a beautiful dress and force her friends to dress fancy too. And besides, Nott and Yeza looked so happy, dancing there together, and it was making her happy too. Yasha and Caduceus had parked themselves by the food table, so they were probably having a good time too. Beau she couldn’t see, but she supposed she was off seducing the Bright Queen, or something similar. So, Jester thought as she grabbed another handful of sweets from a nearby table, for now at least, she would not think of the future too much. Focus on the present, and on being happy and the centre of attention, for just one night.

Some people that were not having a good time, inexplicably, she thought, were Caleb and Fjord. The two of them were chatting with a really absurdly handsome drow courtier. Or rather, Fjord was doing most of the talking, while Caleb was staring fixedly at his feet, looking awkward to the extent of pain.

This, Jester decided right there and then, was a situation that needed her intervention. 

“Oh” said Fjord, smiling and extending a hand in obvious relief as she marched over, and Jester could not help but blush as she took it. “May I introduce my ah, friend here, Miss Jester Lavorre?”

“It is the greatest honour” said the man, taking her hand from Fjord’s and dropping a swift kiss across her knuckles. “Your charming companions here have been telling me about you.” He inclined his head, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially. “Or at least, Mister Fjord here has. Though I should be honoured to get a word or even a smile out of Mister Widogast here before the night is through, and I wonder if you would help me in this.”

“Oh, Caleb’s just shy” she said, “he’s always like that.”

“Strong and stoic, as befits a hero” said the drow, with a wink meant just for her. Something about that wink, made her immediately warm to him. There was a warmth to his smile, so she barely noticed the quick gesture he made, just out of the line of her vision. But, for some reason, she suddenly felt as though she could trust him, as one of her own friends. He drew back, with satisfaction.

“Ah-huh” said Caleb, as they came back to him and Fjord. “Perhaps, Jester, you know, perhaps we should all leave and, ah, go to bed now, it is getting quite late…”

“Caleb, you’re silly, I thought you always knew the time?” she pointed to the clock on the wall. “It must not even be dark yet, outside the big star bubble!”

“….Ah. My mistake,” said Caleb, shuffling his feet. “Ah, well, I need to ahh… go over there for a bit… I feel like I ate something bad….I do not want to throw up my – _ow_!” he squeaked, as Jester summoned healing magic to her fingers, slapped a healing spell hard into his back, grinning triumphantly as he regained some of his rather drained colour.

“There you go. All better!”

But still, he protested. “I, uh, really should go…”

“Caleb!” Jester giggled, swiping his arm playfully with the trailing part of her bell sleeve, where it frothed with intricate lace. “Be polite!” She turned to the man before her, who had been introduced to them by Essek earlier. “Sorry, My Lord, ah…” she had forgotten his name, and she felt Fjord elbow her, about to interject, when the man himself interrupted.

“Lord Eraius Vanephrion” he said, with a gracious smile, and half a bow to each of them. He looked a little amused, hushing Fjord’s incipient apology. “I understand, Miss Lavorre-”

“Call me Jester.”

“Jester.” The way he said it made her blush. “I understand that of course guests of honour new-come to court must meet an interminable number of Lords and Ladies of various sorts, so I do not blame you. I myself am relatively new to the court of the Bright Queen, and my….companion, the Lady Seraphai Vanephrion, and myself have found it quite a trial to remember the names and positions of so many, grateful though we are to have been honoured so. But come, I would not compare myself to you.” He looked around at the three of them with the sort of admiration and an only partially veiled, hungry curiosity that so many here had. She blinked; she wasn’t sure if it was only her imagination, but she had thought she had seen his eyes linger for an instant longer on Caleb’s face. But then he was back to smiling, slightly self-affacing. “Please, you must stop me when I ramble about myself. My Lady scolds me for it so… she is of the adventurous sort herself, and I fear she finds me quite dull. In fact, I fear she’s vanished for the evening.”

“Oh, has she?” Jester said, with a grin and a near-involuntary wiggle of her eyebrows. That sounded very like something that the handsome male lead – a married man, no less – had said to the beautiful heroin in _Discord_ _I_ _n_ _Her_ _Lady_ _ship_ _’s Chamber_ , which was one of her favourite recent acquisitions. And to think Beau had said that those books didn’t prepare her for real life encounters. Jester could not help the giggle that slipped out as she thought it. In fact, now she came to think of it, this man was very attractive, in an elvish sort of way; probably even more than the guy in the book. Pretty fine features and deep blue skin, with very dark purple eyes, dressed in well-tailored dove grey velvet.

“Apparently so. I can’t see her, but…” he smiled a little impishly. “I daresay she’s having her own fun. We have an…understanding, of sorts.” He looked around at the three of them, clasping his hands in front of him. “I suppose that means I have your honourable company to myself then, assuming you’ll have me.”

Jester could not help but smirk, just a little bit. “Oh yes. We will.”

“…Uhhhhhh” said Fjord; Jester elbowed him, as she could already see a dark green blush creeping up under his tight collar, at her tone. “Yeah. I’m…open to that possibility…uh, wait, what?” he elbowed Caleb, blushing even harder, looking more confused by the moment. “Caleb?”

Caleb said nothing comprehensible, rather let out an incomprehensible string of mumbling, looking like he would rather be anywhere but here. Frumpkin hung from the ceiling above the man’s head as a spider, Jester saw, and rapidly began climbing up to the ceiling again, as Caleb’s eyes began to flick backwards and forwards so fast they blurred.

Jester pouted. She would talk to him about this later, but in the meantime, she just slipped her arm through his, giving him a squeeze to try to ground him. He should be having a good time at this party; she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t. “I’m sorry my friends are being dumb and shy.”

Caleb merely muttered something, giving Jester a Look before swiftly looking away, avoiding her eye. Though not as much as he was avoiding the eye of Lord Eraius, Jester thought. It was almost difficult not to meet his gaze, but Caleb was still trying determinedly. Jester didn’t understand why Caleb was acting like this all of a sudden; he had barely been this socially awkward since they had found him in Trostenwald all stinky and covered in dirt.

Her eyes blurred a little as she glanced between them, and she blinked the haze away impatiently.

And then. Then it hit her, in a flash of inspired realisation. The Truth, as she now was certain it was.

Caleb had a crush.

 _Yes, that was it for sure_ , Jester though, squinting at Caleb, who was blinking very rapidly and looking deeply uncomfortable. He was absolutely smitten with this Lord Eraius, she was instantly certain of it.

Jester barely restrained her squeal of excitement. It would be so romantic! Just like _T_ _he Courting of the Crick_! Though, maybe without the racial slurs and Empire propaganda. And also without the death at the end. It would, she thought, because she would make it so. Yes, Jester decided. She knew her purpose now, and it was to get Caleb a hot noble drow boyfriend.

The first stage, she thought, was getting them to dance. And if that meant that she and Fjord got to dance together, then that was just a side benefit. This was for Caleb, after all.

“Fjord!” she commanded, making him jump. She extended a hand, smiling brightly. “Dance with me?”

“…Ahhhh… Jester” Caleb turned to her, “can I talk to you for just a moment?”

“Um, sure Caleb!” she sang out, pulling him aside excitedly. He was going to tell her a secret, she knew. She loved secrets. She took his hands, tilted her head and made her best listening face. “What is it?” She couldn’t resist. “Is it that guy? Do you think he’s _dreamy_?”

Caleb darted a glance back, looking deeply perturbed, having trouble getting the words out. “Jester, remember how I told you how, in my….ah, my past…”

Suddenly it hit her. “Oh, you mean, with your girlfriend?” She dropped her voice to a solemn whisper, “Astrid?” he winced, opened his mouth as if to speak, then appeared to think better of it, and her suspicions were confirmed. “Oh, Caleb…” she put her palms together and squished his cheeks from either side. “It’s been so long. You deserve to be happy! To move on and find someone new! We’re in a new country, new everything, you look all shiny and handsome in your new outfit, we’re _heroes_ here…” she looked into his eyes; he still looked deeply conflicted, and that made her very sad. She took her hands away from his face, putting them on his shoulders instead. “Let her go. I promise you, you’re going to have fun.”

“No, no it’s…it’s not… _Astrid_ ” said, in a tiny, strangled voice. He darted another glance back. “It’s…”

She frowned. “….What?”

“…..” he was silent, as he seemed to search her face, for a very long time.

“ _Caleb_.” She gave him her best stern look.

And he let out his breath, looking away. “Never mind. _Ja_ , okay. I will dance with him, if it will keep you happy.”

“Are you sure?”

“…Of course.”

“Really? Cos you seem, I don’t know, kinda not sure…”

He gave her a tiny, brave smile. “I am sure, Jester.”

She gave him a little pat on the cheek, happy again. “Yay! Okay, then” she dragged Caleb back towards the other two, then turned back to Fjord. “Hey, Fjord! Dance with me!” she yelled.

Fjord blushed, and stammered a little, shooting a guilty look at Caleb, then another look at her, then at her hand, then at Lord Eraius. “Um…okay…sure.” He put his hand in Jester’s, and she thought she did very well to resist dipping him right there and then, so excited was she. This was all going to go perfectly according to plan.

“Well then, it would be my honour to ask you to dance.” Eraius extended an elegant hand to Caleb, who stared at it as though it was the head of a poisonous snake. Like the snake hands man they had seen on the island that one time, Jester thought. So, she very graciously and kindly elbowed Caleb hard in the ribs. Lord Eraius glanced at her, and offered her another wink and a smile, as he took Caleb’s hand, and led him off to dance.

With a satisfied grin, Jester grabbed Fjord’s arm and pulled him towards the dancefloor too, just as the music began to start up.

* * *

 

The previous dance had been a waltz, more familiar to Caleb than the one that was beginning next, as he stepped out onto the dancefloor with his partner.

“If you do not know this dance, then watch me” said the man opposite him, with an easy smile. But there was a subtle coldness in his tone now, that had not been there a moment before. “And follow what I do exactly.”

Caleb nodded, darting a glance over his shoulder, reassured at the sight of Fjord and Jester, and Nott and Yeza, dancing not far off. He tilted his jaw up a little; this man was taller than him, but only by a fraction. “I will be paying close attention” he said stiffly, to which his partner inclined his head in acknowledgment, a wry smile playing about his lips.

And so the music began, the sound of viols and chimes and the unfamiliar triple flutes of the court musicians here weaving together over the sound of the dancers themselves. Caleb barely heard the music though, so intent was he on the face opposite his. Their hands touched in between them as the dance began, and his mind made the point of contact between their flesh feel familiar as burning. This dance was not known to him, more typically Xhorhasian in style than the previous one. The steps were simple enough to learn, though; it involved touching palm to palm with one’s partner, circling and parting, then coming back together once again to clasp forearms, then parting and linking arms for the third turn, before beginning it all again.

He would rather have concentrated on the steps all night, he thought. It took both too little time, and an agonising age, for what he had expected to happen.

Only a few repetitions into the dance, the man leaned in to whisper in Caleb’s ear, very close and very quiet. “I know you recognised me from the start. I could see it in your eyes. I am proud of you for… not making a scene” he said, before the dance parted them. When it brought them back together, clasped forearm to forearm, the sides of their faces brushing, Caleb felt his fingers tighten a little in the fabric of his sleeve. “But please understand that if you try to…cause a public spectacle here, your friends will die screaming, along with many other people.” Again, they parted and came back together, the man’s voice icy calm and matter-of-fact as he whispered in Caleb’s ear. “If you truly know me, then you know that that is not an empty threat.”

Caleb licked his dry lips, the music fading into a discordant swirl in the back of his head as he struggled to keep himself from panicking. “I understand” he said softly, the next time they came back together. The dance was growing faster, and he was almost having trouble keeping up. “What do you want from me?”

“To talk, _Caleb Widogast_.” He smiled, with bleak amusement. “Somewhere private.”

Caleb pressed his eyes closed for a moment, trying not to faint. He had almost told Jester the truth, a moment ago. Why had he changed his mind, at the last moment? He trusted Jester implicitly, and yet he was still a coward; he hadn’t known how to even begin to explain. _Later_ , he had thought, and now he was about to pay for it. He opened his eyes, meeting dark purple ones, rimmed with pale lashes. Yet he knew well enough whose eyes lay beneath. He had recognised every mannerism, every turn of phrase.

After all, they had known each other long enough.

He swallowed, holding his gaze, as the dance came to an end, the music soaring into a climactic chord. He glanced around the hall at the others; Yasha and Caduceus over in the corner, Yeza and Nott laughing and breathless as Yeza swept up her hand and kissed the back of it in a grand gesture, Jester pulling Fjord towards the drinks table in delight. Beau was nowhere to be seen. Still, no-one seemed to be paying much attention to what he was doing, which was all that mattered.

 _Calculated risk_ , Caleb thought desperately.

And so, he dropped a bow to his partner, like everyone else in the hall, and offered his arm after they parted. “All right, _Lord Eraius Vanephrion_ ” he said. “Then, let’s talk.”

As they slipped from the room together, Caleb’s palms were sweating. He dropped back for a moment, out of the man’s line of sight, and, discretely, slipped his hand inside the pocket of his coat and snapped his fingers out of sight, turning his head slightly to hide the slight flash of light in his eyes.

Then he followed.

It wasn’t hard to find an empty room in the palace, once they had gone far enough from the ballroom that the sound of music, laughter and conversation had faded.

The door closing behind them sounded too loud, too final.

And then they were alone. Caleb raised his head to look.

The illusion dissipated in a swirl of residual magical energy, blurring the air like heat for a split second.

When it cleared, Caleb’s breath caught in his throat. For the human man that stood there was so familiar, one of several faces he had both dreaded to see again and yet known in his heart that he would, one of these days. He struggled to speak, his voice momentarily gone, though not from any spell.

The man in front of him beat him to it.

“Bren. I apologise for the disguise.” He spoke in Zemnian. “I think you saw through it right from the beginning, though. You were always good at that.”

Caleb could barely raise his voice above a whisper, though the words were hard to form, even in his native tongue. _Theirs_ , rather. “…What do you want from me, Eodwulf?”

The curl of a smile. “Oh, several things. But it has been so long, Bren. And did we not say we would talk?”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Caleb narrowed his eyes, glancing around the room. “Where is Astrid? I assume she is here too?”

Eodwulf shook his head, laughing slightly. “You’re right. I would not come to a place like this without her. She is in her element here.”

“Where is she?”

“Why the rush, Bren? If you want to see her, you only had to seek us out in the Empire.”

“Tell me.”

Eodwulf tutted softly “You know, I am feeling a little disappointed. I see you after all these years, and the only person you want to see is Astrid? ….I mean, she always was the best of us, but still. It has been…what? Nearly seventeen years?”

Caleb crossed his arms, pressing the pad of his finger into the reassuring corner of his spellbook, through the fabric of his coat. He could hear the beginnings of the tone that Eodwulf used when he mingled his words with enchantment magic, and he was keeping his eyes open for the slightest hint, the slightest motion to smear honey or molasses on his lips. Mentally, he was calculating how quickly he could go for his own spell components, the trajectory his hand would need to take to reach phosphorus, bat guano, sulfur. The dimensions of the room, angles and speeds, and what would most easily catch light. “You have been sent to spy, to gather information” he said, flatly.  “I cannot give it to you. I certainly cannot shed any light on the war effort. And if you’re any good at spying, you would know that.” He squinted. “There is something else, or am I wrong?”

“Oh, no, of course you are right.” He took a step forward, narrowing the gap between them; Caleb could not help but notice the changes; his hair was shorter and more severe-looking, his shoulders and chest filled out a little more in his well-tailored coat, his face a bit more lined. But apart from that, Eodwulf looked remarkably the same, especially around the eyes, right down to the way that the frown line crumpled his brow slightly unevenly in the middle.

And there was an odd expression on his face. “I have to say, Bren… what you did, giving over the Beacon like that, well, it took us by surprise. That changed things. And so - ”

But at that moment, Eodwulf broke off, one hand coming up to clutch at the brooch on his lapel for a moment, a bright stone cut in the shape of a dodecahedron, in a setting of complicatedly braided threads of copper filigree.

An odd metal to use for fine jewellery, under normal circumstances.

Caleb watched Eodwulf nod quickly to himself, a second later. “Understood” he said, in answer to a voice Caleb hadn’t heard. He frowned. “Hmm. Something pressing just came up. Let’s continue this later.”

Then, he was moving, darting forward. Caleb, alarmed, was halfway into the somatic motion to pull up a shield spell, but before he could, he felt Eodwulf’s hand close around his wrist, and then a muttered arcane word, _and then_ -

Then, he felt himself yanked out of corporeal existence, his vision of the room collapsing in on himself as Eodwulf pulled him by the wrist out of this very plane, before he even had time to think of resisting the pull.

Then, the world formed around him again, and he was in a new place, his head spinning with disorientation as his senses adjusted to the rapid change in his surroundings. He blinked, furiously; teleportation wasn’t supposed to throw the senses off so much, his vision splitting into multiple versions of the same scene. As though reflected by many, parallel -

_Mirrors_ , he realised. There were reflections of him, and Eodwulf, in all directions, stretched out in long arcs as far as he could see.

But they weren’t the only other people reflected. He heard a shout coming from behind him, as Eodwulf dropped his wrist and started running, to where two figures were locked in battle, one dressed in blue, holding the other in a painful-looking arm lock.

The taller woman in the blue robes, he couldn’t see a face, but he recognised Dairon easily.

The other woman was Astrid.

Her eyes locked with his, for just a fraction of an instant. A moment later though, his view of her was cut off as Eodwulf flung a bolt of crackling lightning at  Dairon’s back, white-hot violet searing streaks across Caleb’s retinas, reflected a thousand times in the mirrors all around. Dairon cried out, dropping Astrid’s arm and collapsing to one knee, the back of her tunic smoking. Caleb could see a large area where the fabric was scorched away, and underneath, the familiar red sheen of a fresh burn. He could smell ozone, and the too-familiar smell of burning flesh.

She turned her head, looking back over her shoulder to where Eodwulf was advancing on her, hand still outstretched in a casting gesture. But her eyes slipped past him, locking onto Caleb, and for a moment blinking in surprise as she saw him there.

Then fury slipped over her face, and before he could do anything to help her – though he barely knew Dairon, she was important to Beau, and so he should at least try to do something – she was already moving, springing back up to her feet with that catlike grace that she had clearly passed on to her pupil. She used her momentum to aim a kick at Eodwulf, catching him in the side of the ribs, and using Astrid’s moment of distraction to hurl herself across the room and through the open sash window.

“ _Go after her_ -!” Eodwulf ran to the window, hands on the sill and peering down to the ground below, but Astrid grasped his upper arm, answering in Zemnian.

“Wulf, no! …Let her go.”

He looked up at her. “But, the orders -”

“Patience, darling. I already have the leverage we planned. She’ll come back.”

He seemed a little placated by this, but he still frowned. “You cannot…?” he made a quick gesture with his hand, that Caleb didn’t understand. It seemed almost like a somatic gesture, broken off in the way when one was trying merely to indicate which spell they meant, without actually casting it. But it was not like the spells he recognised; a rotation of his hand, a skillful flick of the wrist so fast his fingers blurred a little. “A few minutes…”

But Astrid shook her head. “Better to save it. There’s nothing she can do to uncover us, not without dooming herself too.” She pushed Eodwulf gently aside, looking over to where Caleb was watching the two of them, his body tense as a drawn bowstring, trying to keep himself from trembling too visibly. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to undo _this_.” She took a step forward, her face twisting in a small frown as Caleb raised his hand; her eyes moved over him, and he was certain she could see how hard he was trembling. Just like Eodwulf, she looked different, changing with the intervening years, yet disturbingly, frighteningly, the same, dark eyes reflecting points of torchlight bright as shards of mirror themselves as she stared at him, her expression unreadable. She had blood on her face and coagulating in her hair, he saw, a fresh, purpling bruise across one cheek, and one of the long, satin gloves she wore was stained with a wash of crimson from a wound higher up her arm.

( _Those gloves_ ; he remembered she had started wearing them to hide the scars, when their master brought them along to the very occasional ceremonial ball or gala in Rexxentrum, a great honour. _Wouldn’t want to be seen as damaged goods_ , he remembered her saying, with a light but slightly brittle laugh, and he and Eodwulf had shared a glance; they knew by then how to recognise when something truly _bothered_ Astrid. She was always one to strive for perfection in all things, or at least the appearance of it. Not that the two seemed much different back then, to any one of them.)

He blinked a few times, dismissing the image of the three of them, sixteen years old and sitting around a table piled with steaming mugs of coffee and stacks of paper and books and assorted ink bottles and pens, as Astrid spoke again. “Wulf, I’m impressed. You got him so quickly.”

“He came straight to me.”

If he didn’t know better he would have said she looked just a little sad, as she addressed him this time. “Couldn’t stay away, Bren?”

He gritted his teeth, mind running through spells as she stared at him; they were almost exactly the same height. Eodwulf came to stand by her shoulder, slightly taller. He didn’t dare move, but stood there, paralysed as surely as though a spell had been cast on him, like a deer before the hunter.

_Stupid_ , a voice in his mind said. _Weak._ _They are your enemies now: they will not hesitate to hurt you. It is only you that_ _lacks the strength_ _to strike first._

When he didn’t answer, she sighed. “Bren, I will not waste time” said Astrid, face studiously blank. “We need to know everything. You know how we work.” And he did, and she saw it on his face at her words, for she nodded. “You know what will happen if you don’t cooperate.”

Out of nowhere, even now, he felt a laugh come, painful and jagged at the back of his throat. “If I do cooperate, then will it be any different? I know you will not let me leave this room.”

Astrid gave a thin smile. “Astute, but in this case incorrect, Bren. I’m afraid you _will_ be leaving here, actually. You’re long overdue a talk with an old teacher.”

He could not suppress the chill that went through him at her words. But he couldn’t let his desperation take over, he knew; he had acted out of desperation before, and he had only survived because he had others there to help him. Now, he was utterly alone, and he could not afford to miscalculate. “Why here? Why now? As you said,” he turned to Eodwulf, “it would have been much easier for you to find me in the Empire.”

“The situation has changed” said Eodwulf. “You were a traitor before, but not a defector. You have become a liability.”

Caleb swallowed, wondering if he should be proud of that, but merely feeling terrified.

“But you knew that” interjected Astrid. “You’re clever, Bren. You must have known, when you made that very public show of your allegiance, what it would bring.”

He nodded, feeling suddenly weary; in this, at least, she was right, however little he liked to acknowledge it. He had been on edge, waiting for something like this, ever since he had stepped forward with the dodecahedron in hand. It was almost a relief, to see them here now.

Almost.

Astrid raised an eyebrow. “Have you got nothing to say to us?”

He shrugged, peering up at them from under his lashes, not trusting himself to speak even as his mind ran through his spells, over and over.

His silence seemed to anger Astrid, though. She stepped forward, but before she could speak, Eodwulf laid a placating hand on her shoulder, smoothly stepping in beside her. “Bren, I know why you did what you did. And I know that you didn’t do it for the sake of the Dynasty…you did it for those friends of yours, didn’t you? I can tell you love them very much.” He smiled at the sight of Caleb’s expression. “You’re good at a lot of things, Bren, but hiding how much you care isn’t one of them. It would break you, if you weren’t already broken.” His hand twitched, weaving a coil of enchantment magic through his voice. “Now, you know that they know me now, trust me even. It would be so easy for me to tell them everything about you. All the things they don’t know, all the details. And it would be so easy for me to hurt them. So I _suggest_ you give yourself up to us, and submit to questioning, and they will not be harmed.”

“Submit to questioning” repeated Caleb, his mouth dry. He had to fight to throw off the suggestion spell, slipping loose from it by just a fraction, with all the strength of will he had. The effort made dizziness wash over him, stars dancing momentarily in his vision. “I have already told you, I do not know about-”

“You know about the Beacon” said Astrid abruptly, eyes piercing him. “You have spent more time with it that anyone in the Empire, I can see it in your eyes.” He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw her own eyes glint with a spark of pale grey for just a moment, emerging from their usual dark brown like the bright fragment inside the Beacon. “We need to know what you know about dunamancy, and how it is wielded here.”

Caleb could not help but laugh, bitterly. “Is that all?”

“Absolutely not. We also need you to get back the Beacon for us.”

There was a short silence. “Well, ah, first of all, I have about as much chance of getting the Beacon as you do” said Caleb. “I am afraid I am not trusted as much as you think, here.” He held up a hand, silencing Eodwulf’s interjection. “And about dunamancy. You also know more than I do, probably” he said. “I cannot describe it. It is not a form of magic that can simply be written in the form of spells, like you or I are used to- ”

“Liar. There are dunamantic spells, obviously there are” said Astrid, holding up an open palm; it swarmed with a whirring tangle of that same greyish energy, sending waves of distortion off into the air, his eyes blurring the harder he tried to look directly at it. “We have been studying it, but only second-hand. Others have been working to distill its essence, but… _you_ , though. _You_ , Bren, the traitor and the coward who ran away, you have been able to look directly into the very Beacon itself. I can see it in your eyes.” That flash of grey in her own eyes, again. Her expression was positively hungry. “You understand what dunamis _is_. Do you know how many of the Assembly would kill for such a chance, for such a power?”

He blinked. “I do not understand it as well as you think” he said, truthfully. His mind was fixed on the part about spells; this was an entire school of magic, yes, but he had never understood it as the same kind as the others that he knew. Had he really missed so much of its nature?

His thoughts were interrupted though, as, quick as that, Astrid’s hand was at his throat, her fingers pressing hard into his jugular. He felt magic well up in her palm, necrotic energy now coursing through him from the point of contact, sapping his strength, his vision beginning to white out at the edges. At the same time, he could see Astrid’s wounds start to close, the bruise across her cheek receding as she clenched her fingers tighter.

“You always were _weak_ ” she hissed, her voice tight with fury, though her face was almost completely blank. Her brow furrowed, just a little bit. “I didn’t see it then. But I see it now. Breaking was the best thing you ever did for us, really.” Her mouth twisted, and he suddenly remembered the way she had been before; when he had burned hot, Astrid had burned cold, able to freeze her heart to ice and steel at will.

He had admired that about her, once.

“So, here is what will happen” Astrid said, through gritted teeth, as Caleb struggled for air in her grip. “You will help us, in any way you can, to reclaim the Beacon. Then you will come with us, back to the Empire, to face what you deserve. If you do this, we will spare your friends’ wretched lives.” She squeezed his windpipe a little tighter, sending a renewed pulse of necrotic blight through his body. “Does that sound equitable?”

Caleb struggled to let out a tiny sound, as Eodwulf laid a hand on Astrid’s wrist, pulling her back a little.

As she drew back, Caleb slumped to his knees, massaging his throat; she had taken nearly everything from him, and even the backs of his hands had turned a sickly greyish purple, like blood pooling in the skin of a corpse. He looked up, shaking aside the hair that had fallen across his face, to see them both staring down at him, expectant. “Now, let him talk, Astrid.” Eodwulf smiled, almost amicably, offering his hand. “Come on, Bren. This does not have to be hard for you. It doesn’t even have to be painful. …We missed you, you know. We grieved, when you broke.” He smiled sadly, and suddenly all Caleb could think of was the three of them, holding each other close, comforting each other after a particularly painful and bloody lesson of Ikithon’s. It had always been the three of them together, facing everything. Eodwulf’s hand was outstretched before him, and suddenly he longed to take it, to hold his familiar, pen-callused fingers in his own. _To curl up against_ _Wulf’_ _s chest, as Astrid wove her fingers through his hair_ _and dropped a soft kiss to his throat_ _, the three of them whispering to each other in the darkness, the secret comfort they shared only with each other_ _, and then_ …

“ _No_. Stay out of my _head_!” It was as much a retort to himself as to Eodwulf; he had to keep the words out. Back then, Eodwulf had been learning enchantment, playing with the emotions, specialising in drawing people’s secrets out with sweetness and sympathy before closing the trap. Astrid would freeze them, or set necrosis to slowly eat away at their flesh, or Bren would burn them, and then Eodwulf would comfort them, tell them that everything would be alright, and they would spill their secrets right into his lap as he cradled them in his arms. If they didn’t, he would still hold them gently as he used their real memories to fracture their minds, or send them back for another round of agony from the other two, and somehow they would always forget that he had been anything other than kind.

It was how the three of them always worked together, and it had worked wonderfully, making their master proud. He must not fall for it himself, he knew. He must not. _He must not_.

The decision took only a moment to make, but it was a long one, seeming to stretch out forever.

Eodwulf’s face immediately reverted back to coldness, gaze as icily impassive as Astrid’s beside him. “Well then. Have it your own way.”

But Caleb barely heard him; he was already moving, scrambling to his feet and backwards towards the window as he reached into his component pouch and flung out a wall of fire, between them and him. Eodwulf shouted as the flames caught the tale of his coat, but swung around and sent out a crackling bolt of poisonous energy as he fled for the window. But Caleb ducked by a hair’s breadth and it ricocheted off the glass behind him, smashing a mirror in an explosion of glimmering shards.

But even as he ran for the window – already preparing to pull out a feather, ready to slow his fall – Astrid appeared in front of him, teleporting into the intervening space with a sound like cracking bones, and before he could halt his course, she was throwing out another spell, to hold him fast. He just managed to blurt out a counterspell in time, but even as he did, he felt Eodwulf’s own counter-counterspell hit his back, and he felt the paralysis lock up his limbs, nearly sending him crashing to the ground with his own momentum.

But he did not fall; instead, he stood rooted to the spot, seething and straining against the paralysis as Astrid walked towards him.

She was reaching into her pocket, locking eyes with Eodwulf was closing in on him from the other side. Pure panic made him struggle fiercely against the spell; the magical bonds held his limbs fast as iron bands, but so much more depended on this than just his own life.

He thought of the others, where he had left them in the ballroom. He thought of Jester, with her boundless joy and overspilling love, and Beau with her fierce compassion, listening to him but not letting him get an ounce of bullshit past her. He thought of Caduceus’ caring hands, gentle and quiet and kind, and Yasha, the rages passing over her like stormclouds over a clear and gentle blue sky. He thought of Fjord and their blood bond forged of salt and iron, the brine stinging his wound and the firm grip of their hands under the water, a promise of kinship. Of Mollymauk, who lay in the cold dark earth, and of how they had all sworn – with words or without them – that it wouldn’t happen to another of them, ever again.

And he thought of Nott, who had seen a broken man crumpled in the corner of a grimy jail cell and thought, _yes, there is something to be saved there_. Her hands weaving flowers into his hair or slipping a gold coin into his palm for books and paper, or clasping onto his coat as she muttered and wriggled in her sleep.

It wasn’t enough, he thought. Or maybe, maybe it was.

He forced his way out of the paralysis like a pin through elastic, bursting forward with speed as he smacked a haste spell into his chest. He darted through the gap between the two of them, adrenaline burning through him, bolting for the door, shouting as he went. He pulled out the wire. “Nott!” he yelled. “Nott, help! Everyone, help!” He slammed open the door with a resounding clatter; good, it would bring more people running.

As he ran down the corridor, he turned back over his shoulder, in time to see Astrid burst out of the door, Eodwulf a step behind. He could already hear the discordant peals of many alarm bells, ringing somewhere in the palace, the sounds of shouting in the ballroom downstairs, hurrying feet. Gritting his teeth, he reached into his pocket – nearly stumbling as he ran blindly – and pulled out the two components he needed. _Bat guano on one palm, sulfur on the other, smear them together_ …the incantation slipped from his tongue as he felt a bead of concentrated heat forming between his palms, and flung it over his shoulder, back towards the two people he had known since he was old enough to remember anything at all. Two people he had loved more than anyone else, once.

He glanced over his shoulder, to see the streaking glow of the unborn fireball, expanding already as it flew towards the target at which he had sent it; but behind it he saw something else.

He saw Astrid, with cold fury in her eyes, Eodwulf with a hand on her shoulder. Neither of them were moving aside, standing perfectly still even as the fire flew at them in a blazing arc.

And then, in the instant before the fireball hit, Astrid raised her hand, and even at this distance, Caleb could just make out the somatic motion of her fingers. A rotation of the hand at the wrist, fingers extended, anticlockwise.

And as she did so, the fireball changed direction, shrinking once again to a tiny bead of heat, receding back along its path towards Caleb’s hand. But that wasn’t all; he could feel his own movement changing, he was running backwards now, back along the corridor, his feet still facing forwards but his body moving back. His breath moving out and in where before it had been in and out, his very blood moving backwards as it flowed through his veins.

And his memory was unspooling too, as he ran back along the corridor, helpless against what felt like the current of a river that suddenly, inexplicably changes direction. He could feel his mind forgetting the last few moments, clinging on to them like the tattered ends of a dream before they disappeared entirely. Then he was back at the door, throwing it open in reverse, and wondering how fast he could get away, then back in the middle of the room, seeing his chance. Then Astrid was holding him, her hand tight around his throat, and he couldn’t breath, and he was speaking, but it was too fast and reversed and he couldn’t make any sense of it. But he knew those words, he remembered them from a few moments ago, until he didn’t anymore, because they had never been.

And then it stopped, the terrible riptide in time that he had been caught in, and an instant later he didn’t remember it at all. Astrid had her hand around his throat, necrotic energy coursing through his veins, and Eodwulf was behind him.

And Astrid, suddenly, was using her free hand to fumble for something in one of her pockets. She tugged free a small object; a little ceramic bottle, he saw, in his peripheral vision. She had to let go of his throat then, swaying as he nearly crumpled to his knees but just managed to keep his balance, hands going to his neck as the world lurched and spun around him.

“Well, now” Astrid said. “If that is the way it’s going to be…” she nodded at Eodwulf, who stepped forward. “I suppose we _will_ just have to do this the hard way.”

Caleb narrowed his eyes, looking between the two of them. “What do you - ” but he broke off, as Eodwulf passed his hands over his face.

When they had gone, Caleb’s own face looked back at him, as though he were looking in a mirror. It was not quite like looking in a mirror though; mirrors reverse the features, so an exact likeness felt…strange. Off. Still, Caleb saw with horror that the illusion was precise. Of course it was; Eodwulf had always had a knack for illusions, and a keen eye for detail.

“ _If you will not give_ _us_ _what_ _we_ _want_ ” said Eodwulf, in a near-exact impression of Caleb’s own voice, speaking in Common before switching back to Zemnian, “then perhaps your friends will give _you_ what we want.”

Caleb gritted his teeth, staring back at his own gaze in pain. “It will not work. They know me.”

“Maybe.” Eodwulf smiled, sadly, the expression Caleb’s own and yet not, as he reached out and touched his cheek. His own hand felt rough against his skin, callused and scarred. “But they do not know you like _I_ know you, Bren. And I promise you, they will not know it is not you, until the knife is between their ribs, twisting until all the secrets come out of them. Maybe not even then.”

“…No-!” he gasped. All he could think of was his friends, speaking to the person they thought was him. He had always known that he would likely hurt them one day, that traveling with him was a risk to them, recently most of all. But not like this. It shouldn’t be like this. He gritted his teeth, trying to grasp at _something_ , anything. The last, desperate card he had left in his hand. “Wait. Wait, I have to tell you something, about our p-”

“Sorry, Bren.” Astrid’s hand closed tighter on his throat, cutting off his words. “But it’s too late… you’ve already burned this bridge. So to speak.” Astrid’s mouth twisted in a pained smile. “Wulf, catch!”

Caleb blinked, as Astrid threw the bottle over his head, spinning to see Eodwulf cast a mage hand behind Caleb, and catch it there. The hand popped out the cork, and as it did a brilliant purple ring of light expanded from the bottle’s neck, pulsating slightly as it floated in the air.

Within the ring was pure blackness.

Caleb turned back to Astrid, in time to meet her gaze. Her face was twisted with anger and triumph, and…something else, that couldn’t quite identify. Her hand was raised, and her fingers twisted in the shape of a claw.

Out of the ground below rose an icy silver hand. Astrid extended her own hand forward, and the glowing copy, almost too bright to look at, struck him in the chest with inexorable force, sending him toppling backwards with the ferocity of the blow.

But before when he should have collided with the bright circle, he felt gravity shift and buckle around him, as he fell through the brilliant ring of light, into blackness.

The very last thing he saw was the portal close to a bright dot behind him, as he fell into the dark, striking the ground hard and knowing no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ........ROLL INITIATIVE BABY
> 
> (Also, until Matt and/or Liam gives us more I will just continue to make up stuff about Astrid and Eodwulf, and also dunamancy and how it even works. I cannot be stopped.)


	5. Chapter 5

“Wait” said Caleb, holding up a hand. He let the fistful of fire dissipate into smoke; that was something, Beau thought, as she watched him cast the four dancing lights into the air. They bobbed and danced around the two of them. He squinted at her in the soft glow that now seemed brilliant and dazzling, after all this darkness. He looked jittery, on edge, eyes still wide and haunted. 

His clothes and hair looked a little scorched in places, now she had a better look, and there was some blood at the corner of his mouth and nose. _Well, he had just had a probably-punctured lung, half a minute ago_. He wiped the blood away impatiently. “I do not know that it is really you, Beauregard. And, I suppose, you do not know it is really me. We need to trust each other, before anything. We should ask each other questions only we would know the answer to, before we talk.”

She winced, remembering Astrid’s disguise; she should probably assume everyone was disgused until proven otherwise. _Fucking magic_. “Uh, yeah, good idea. Okay, I’ll ask you a question, hang on, uh…” She thought for a moment. “Ummmm….what is your familiar’s name?” she asked.

“Frumpkin, but that’s too easy for…others to know” said Caleb. “Ask something else. You get another one, because your question was bad.”

“Hey, it wasn’t - ” she rolled her eyes. “Okay, uh, what….oh! What form did you put Frumpkin in, when you loaned him to me? And how long did you let me have him for?”

“An elf owl, and for a week” said Caleb promptly, and Beau nodded. “Ah, okay, my turn. Tell me about that one time you tripped balls in Nicodranas?”

“Trick question. It was in Zadash” said Beau, encouraged by his slight smile and nod. “It was with Molly, we both took skein. I saw a bunch of weird fish spirits and shit. It was pretty cool, but I think I ate some dirt?”

“ _Ja_ , you definitely ate some dirt” said Caleb, nodding. He seemed a little reassured, Beau thought. “Round two. Ask me something else.”

“Ummmm…what did we name our pirate ship?”

“The first one was called the Mist, which we renamed the Mistake. Then we acquired the Squall Eater, which we - appropriately? - renamed the Ball Eater.”

“Yeah, congrats. Your turn.”

“Okay ahhh…” he squinted, “who was the last person you had sex with?”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Again with your weird obsession with my sex life, god, we’ve _talked_ about this…if I didn’t before I _definitely_ know it’s you now.”

“Fine, okay, then… what about kissed? Who was the last person you kissed?”

Beau was glad that it was too dark for Caleb to see what her face was doing as she dragged her hand down her cheek, severly regretting her recent choices. “Uh, okay changed my mind. First question again, answer is Keg.” She grinned. “Far as you know of, anyway.”

“Uh huh. Honestly, I do not want to know anything more. You passed the test, we’re done here.”

He was silent for a moment more, and Beau wondered if maybe he had not missed her pause a moment ago. _Shit_. She didn’t know how he would react right now to her telling him about…that whole situation, with her and Astrid. “Way to make things weird Caleb” she said hastily. “I asked a normal-ass question.”

“…Sorry I made it weird, Beauregard. It has, ah, been a weird day.”

“…Yeahhh, tell me about it.” She sighed. “In fact, yeah. Yeah! Like, are you actually going to tell me why you fell down a… a magic hole? A fucking portal in the ceiling? Also, what is this place?”

“I…can go part of the way to explaining it, and I don’t really know what this place is, but I have ideas” he said. He saw her look, took a deep breath, the lights drifting in towards him all at once, spiralling around his head. “Okay. Okay, okay. It all began at the ball, with me and Fjord and Jester…”

And so, he told her his story. Long, heavy with detail of spellcasting that Beau didn’t wholly understand or care about, punctuated by non-sequential explanatory asides and delivered mostly in Caleb’s usual Monotone of Anxiety, but all she could do was listen. Finally, he came to the end and said, “And, that is how I ended up falling into this place. I find it difficult to see how either of us will get out, but” he spread his hands before him. “That’s what happened.”

There was a short silence.

“…So, long story sort, you got your ass kicked by your two, uh, wizard assassin…exes…?” said Beau. By this point, she was lying on the ground on her back with her head pillowed on Caleb’s outstretched legs, where he sat against the wall, arms folded across his chest. She batted gently at one of his dancing lights, as it drifted overhead. “And now you’re here.”

“Uh, _ja_ , I guess that is about how it was.” Caleb sighed wearily, hesitating a moment before batting the light back towards her. “And what about you? Did you also…get your ass kicked?”

She blew out a breath, staring up determinedly at the glowing orb drifting across her field of vision. “…Yeah. Well, kinda. You could say that.”

“…Did. Did Astrid, ah, seduce you, and then kick your ass, so to speak? Is that what happened?”

Beau sat up so fast that it sent the nearest sphere of light ricocheted off her forehead, bouncing off the other wall, and glared at him. “Mother _fucker_. How did you know…” she sighed, letting out her breath. “Yeahhh. That’s pretty much exactly what happened.”

Caleb reached out rather awkwardly and patted her arm in sympathy.

She sighed, and lay back down flat. “Dairon was also there, and between that and your story I’m fucking scared for her, and that’s a whole other, uh, weird and bad situation, but…yeah. Yeah.”

He sighed, came to lie down beside Beau, looking up at the ceiling so their heads were next to one another, their feet pointing in opposite directions in the small chamber. She heard him let out a quiet pained laugh, halfway to a sob.

“Well” he said. “I guess we’re two fools stuck in here together then.”

“Yeah.” She frowned up at the ceiling. “Caleb. Are you…okay?”

Another silence, then a slight, brittle chuckle. “What do you think, Beauregard.”

“…Yeah. Me too.” She reached out her arm in the semi-darkness and awkwardly prodded the side of his face. “Hey. Glad you’re here though. Or, well, not glad you’re in weird magic bottle-jail with me… and…maybe we just live here forever now…? But you know…”

“I know, Beauregard.”

“We’re gonna find our way out of this, right?”

He reached up, and caught one of the dancing lights in his hand as it flew overhead, fingers like a cage around its brightness. “ _Ja_. I… think we stand more of a chance, together.”

“Yeah” she said. “Yeah, maybe we do.”

* * *

 

“Veth….Veth!”

She blinked a few times, taking a few moments – to her slight alarm – to react to the sound of her old name. But when she turned, she saw Yeza coming over to her, two delicate flutes of sparkling white mulberry wine in hand. His cheeks were flushed in a very endearing way for the dancing, and he smiled as he handed her her glass, taking a cautious sip of his own.

Something was troubling him though; Nott could see it in his face. A familiar, cold fear curled in her stomach; _it was_ _because of_ _her_ , part of her still said. Suddenly, she felt very aware of her bare shoulders and arms and throat in her pretty Xhorhasian-style dress. The pale gold taffeta was tailored to fit her perfectly, but it bared so much of her skin, so much _green_ , and maybe -

“Veth.” She felt Yeza’s hand on her arm, soft and warm. “You’re…spacing out a bit.” He frowned deeper now, pushing his glasses up his nose as he took her hand. “Are you okay?”

She looked at him for a moment, then drank her flute of wine down in one long gulping swallow. The stuff was delicious, of course, slightly herbal in taste and sparkling on her tongue, but the alcohol in it was more dizzying than steadying. She missed the burn of the whiskey from her flask. She wished she could have come to this event with a magical disguise; being Veth, being herself again if only for a night, would certainly have helped.

Still, she forced herself to think only of the joy she had allowed herself to feel earlier, when they had danced. When she had taken Yeza’s hand, and pulled him onto the dance floor, the rest of the room, the world, the war and everything else that troubled them had seemed to melt away. Her confidence usually came in short bursts these days. But it _did_ come sometimes, and in those moments, it felt like she was herself again, as though no time had passed and no one had died, and the two of them were dancing across the store room of the apothecary shop, sliding in sock-clad feet across the smooth stone tiles, needing no music at all.

She felt a pressure, someone squeezing her hand. Belatedly, Nott remembered that Yeza had asked her a question. “I’m fine” she said, forcing a smile. He still looked sceptical, or perhaps just troubled in general. “Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah” said Yeza, blushing a little. “I…missed dancing. I forgot how much.” He pushed his glasses up his nose again, where they had slipped down with the sheen of sweat on his face, and took a sip of his own drink. “I was wondering, uh, though – _ah!_ ”

She started, at his sudden yelp of alarm. “What?”

“…Spider?” he said, squinting at her left shoulder. “Spider!”

“..Huh?”

He took off his glasses, started cleaning them furiously, put them back on and squinted through them. “Uh. I mean, I don’t know if that was deliberate? I know you do magic now. But a spider just, uh, appeared on your shoulder…?”

Nott blinked, and looked sideways to see that Yeza was right: there was indeed a large spider there, climbing up the ruched fabric at the shoulder of her dress. She smiled. “Oh, that’s just Frumpkin.” She raised a finger to stroke the spider’s back. “Caleb’s cat,” she said, by way of explanation.

“Um. Cat. …Cat…?”

“Yeah. He can just be, you know, a spider sometimes.”

Yeza frowned even deeper. “…I see.”

“It’s best not to think too hard about it.” She looked down at Frumpkin. It was difficult to tell, with the chandelier and the many small, floating magical lamps surrounding it, sending pinpricks of light reflecting down onto the spider’s eight beady eyes. But she thought she would be able to see the familiar spark of arcane blue, if it had been there. That meant that Caleb wasn’t watching through Frumpkin. But, for reasons best known to himself, he had just snapped his familiar onto her shoulder.

 _Huh. Weird_.

Just as she was thinking this, Yeza said, “where _is_ Caleb, anyway?”

Nott raised her head, trying to look about; everyone in here was much taller than either of them, so she wasn’t able to see much. “Oh, I expect he’s around” she said. She could swear she had seen him dancing earlier, the red-brown of his hair and his pale skin making him stick amongst the majority of drow as he passed by in the dance. But she hadn’t seen who he was dancing with, and now he seemed to be out of sight anyway.

She was about to say more, when someone began tapping insistently on her shoulder. “Nott, Nott, Nott!” said a familiar voice, “sorry for interrupting you…oh, hi Yeza. Um, sorry, I know you were having fun being real cute and dancing… but Nott, I need you to try to send a message to Beau.”

Nott blinked, faced with a worried-looking Jester, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Can’t you send one?”

Jester made a face, fidgeting nervously with one of the lacy ruffles of her dress. “I tried” she said. “It didn’t work!”

“Wait, you didn’t do the spell right, or…?”

“I don’t know!” said Jester, voice rising higher. “I tried to send her one, and it was like it just sort of…” she made an odd gesture, one hand balled into a fist and punching her open palm, “bounced off? It never sent! I tried twice, but it was making me worried, so I didn’t want to use too many spells just yet…”

Nott exchanged a glance with Yeza, who was beginning to look extremely worried. “Did…something happen, Jester?” she asked, gently. She laid a hand on Jester’s arm. “Breathe.”

Jester did, taking a long steadying breath, looking between Nott and Yeza. Then she looked around, as though to check that no one was listening it. When she seemed satisfied that none of the nearest guests were within easy earshot under the ambient buzz of conversation and clink of glasses, she breathed out. “Right, so, here’s what happened right, I just met - ”

“Oh, hey Jester.” Jester broke off as a brown-skinned hand came down on her shoulder. Nott looked up to see Beau, standing behind her. “There you are. I was looking all over for you.”

Jester paused for just a moment, blinking in surprise, a slight frown line between her eyes. Then she appeared to collect herself, giving her head a quick shake. “Oh. Hi Beau.” She frowned deeper, and looked back at Nott and Yeza, then back to Beau again. “Huh. I must have gotten confused…”

“Uh, okay.” Nott frowned, feeling Frumpkin skitter a little along her shoulder to the base of her neck, resisting the urge to shudder. “Well, as long as you’re here…Beau, have _you_ seen Caleb?”

“Uh, yeah, saw him go out the door a while back.” She raised an eyebrow at Jester’s smirk, her eyebrow that had begun wiggling. “What?”

“Oh nothing!” said Jester, eyebrow wiggling much faster. “Just. There was this guy, and he totally had a crush on Caleb, and Caleb totally had a crush on him, and - ”

“Hey, uh, guys?” said Yeza, pointing, “there he is.”

They all turned to look. Sure enough, there was Caleb, politely wending his way through the clusters of people on the edges of the dancefloor. He came up to their group, stood next to Beau, meeting her eye for a moment.

Then he looked down at Nott, with a smile. “Sorry. Did something happen? What did I miss?”


	6. Chapter 6

**_[Several minutes earlier]_ **

“Fuck!” screamed Jester, half-collapsing on Fjord as she felt the elegant heel of her shoe crack, her ankle bending painfully to one side, sending her off-balance. This was not what was supposed to happen; she had been trying to dip him at the dramatic climax of the dance, but she had apparently completely taken him by surprise and knocked him off-balance, following which his attempt to catch them both missed by a country mile, sending them both to the ground. “Fuck! Shit! Balls!” she yelped again, as she felt Fjord try to help her up. She got to her feet; her ankle throbbed with pain, and when she lifted her foot, she saw that the heel of her shoe was half hanging off.

“Jester!” Fjord was scrambling to his feet as quickly as he could. “Are you okay?”

“Ugh” she said, leaning heavily on Fjord’s arm as the music came to an end. Annoyed, she slapped a quick healing spell into her own ankle, feeling the pain subside, the joint clicking back into place. “These fucking shoes. I don’t know how my momma walks in things like these all the time.”

“Uh, yeah, same. I mean. She’s very impressive but uh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed. “You are too, of course. Guess she’s just used to stuff like that. I wouldn’t feel bad about it.” Fjord patted her shoulder, rather awkwardly. “You wanna take a break?”

She sighed. “Yeah. I need to cast Mending on it, I guess.” She smiled gratefully, letting him lead her to the edge of the dancefloor, walking with one shoe in her hand, broken heel pointed outwards like a weapon. As they came to the edge of the slightly raised and inlaid platform set aside for dancing, she gave Fjord a smile. “Hey, that was nice though, right?”

He grinned. “Uh, yeah I’d say it went great… right up until the end.”

She punched him playfully in the arm. “Shhh. I’m an awesome dancer.”

“Go mend your shoe, Jessie” he said firmly, with a fond smile. “I’ll be over there waiting.” Up ahead of them were Yasha and Caduceus, and as he went to join them, she stayed by the wall, leaning against the carved stone frame of an elegant glass door, that led out to one of the ballroom’s many balconies.

She held her shoe up, concentrating on the Mending spell, and watched as the heel fixed itself. Putting it back on, she drew herself up tall and elegant, like her mother did, and, for good measure, took a glance at her reflection in the glass of the door. It was - as always in Rosohna – dark outside, so she could see her face reflected back at her clearly, if broken into pieces by the intricate geometric mullions of the glass, shaped in the repeating motif of the dodecahedron. It still worked as a pretty good mirror, though, so she took a moment to adjust her hair - pinned up in a beautiful mass of braids and curls specifically designed to complement and accentuate the shape of her horns, which where decorated with chains of pale pink moonstones for the occasion – and smiled a little at what she saw; she looked good, she thought. She felt a momentary pang for her mother; when she was little, as a special treat her mother would do her hair and let her try on her jewels, and they would sing and sometimes dance together, Jester would feel so, so pretty, and so very loved.

She would tell her mother about this night, she thought, and all these beautiful and important people, as well as all of Jester’s friends. She’d want to hear all about it. Maybe she’d even tell her how she had fallen over while dancing with Fjord; that would make her smile, Jester knew.  

She was smiling herself at that thought, and was about to turn away from her reflection to return to the others.

Then she heard a tap on the glass.

Instantly, she was on alert, peering into the darkness past her own reflection. Again came the tapping, and now the sight of figure looming out of the dark on the other side of the glass. They were taller than she was, and wearing a dark swathe of fabric like a hood that obscured most of their face. She was mentally running through her spells, ready to run back and call for her friends, when the tapping came again, more insistent this time. She saw a brown-skinned hand dart back under the cloak, and at the same moment the owner of it moved into the light, raising their head a little so that their eyes caught through the glass, for just an instant before the hood covered the features again.

And Jester recognised her. She let out her breath, relieved, opened the door, and stepped out onto the balcony, clicking the door shut behind her.

Almost as soon as she felt the cooler night air wash over her – welcome after the somewhat stuffy air inside the ballroom - a hand was grabbing her by the side of her voluminous skirt and tugging her into the small alcove beside the door, out of the light. Only then did she pull back the hood, pressing a finger to her lips.

“…Dairon?” said Jester. “What are you - !?”

“Shh! I don’t have long.” She looked extremely alarmed, Jester realised, feeling the beginnings of fear herself. There was blood crusted around her nose, an ugly purple mass of broken veins visible from under her collar, clear signs of necrotic damage, and now Jester noticed that her clothes were slightly singed. Dairon gritted her teeth, letting loose her grip bunched in Jester’s dress. “What was the name of the inn where you encountered me in Asarius?” she barked.

“The…Four Corners” said Jester, confused. “You beat me and Beau up real good. But I don’t understand - ”

Dairon released her breath. “I had to check.” She seemed agitated, pacing the small balcony, “I don’t know who I can trust, and let me tell you, you should follow my example.”

“What?” Jester frowned. “I _know_ you, though. You’re Beau’s friend…teacher. You’re cool.” She squinted, looking up and down at Dairon’s Cobalt Soul robes, visible under her dark hooded cloak. “…If you were someone in disguise, I don’t think you’d dress like that. You’d just get, I don’t know, arrested maybe? Or executed. There’d be no point.”

Dairon grimaced. “Yes, quite. I had a ring that allowed me to change my appearance, but it’s been stolen from me. So I am stuck like this for the moment, unfortunately.”

“Oh! Who stole it from you?”

“An agent of the Empire. She took my ring, I suppose, to limit my ability to move around the palace without being observed. She is extremely dangerous, and is not working alone. There are at least two of them, and…” she gave a sigh, “they have Beauregard.”

“… _What_?”

Dairon took a long breath. “I don’t know that I can trust you. But I know _she_ trusts you, and I don’t have many options right now. So I need your help.”

Jester’s eyes widened. “They have…you saw…?”

“Saw Beauregard kidnapped, yes.” Dairon frowned, tapping the railing impatiently. “I was fighting to save her, but the agent summoned her partner as backup. I was…” Jester saw her face crumple, aggrieved, “…outmatched. I had to run, but I left Beauregard with them, trusting that they would not kill a hostage. I knew that without me alive to warn you, there was no possibility of saving her - ”

Jester blinked rapidly, distressed and finding it hard to process the words spilling from Dairon’s mouth. “Uh…slow down, that’s a lot” she said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “Beau? They have Beau? …Let me go get the others, and we can -”

“No!” hissed Dairon, her hand darting out to grab Jester’s wrist, keeping her from reaching for the door handle. Dairon’s eyes flicked to the doorway, light spilling out onto the balcony through the glass. Inside, Jester could hear the muffled sounds of conversation and laughter, the clinking of glasses and the first bars of the next dance beginning. Dairon shrank back against the railing, retreating into shadows. “I cannot risk being seen here. But I had to warn you.”

“Oh, I can help with that!” said Jester, brightening. “I can, you know, disguise you if you want? Or! Oooh! I can turn you into like, a bird or something, so you can hang out on the roof and not be seen!”

Dairon blinked at her, grip on her wrist loosening just a little. “…That would be a great help, actually.”

“Cool. You want me to do it now, or…?”

“Wait. I have to tell you…the woman who took Beauregard. She is a short human, with dark hair and dark eyes. She has a Zemnian accent, and is a spellcaster. She is _extremely_ dangerous; don’t try to fight her alone. Her name is Astrid, I heard Beauregard say, though that may well be an alias; regardless, my pupil has clearly had some encounter with this agent before.” Dairon raised an eyebrow. “As have you, judging by the face you just made.”

“I…” Jester’s mind was racing. “A-Astrid.” She thought about what Caleb had told her, her breath hitching in her chest with nervous fear. “You said she had help. Was it…ah…a real buff guy, with dark hair and blue eyes…?”

Dairon frowned. “Yes, he teleported to her aid. But there was also…” she leaned in a little closer. “Your traveling companion, the wizard. Zemnian, red hair. He was… there with them.” Dairon’s eyes drilled into her, filled with urgency. “How much do you trust him? Do you have any reason to suspect that he might be working with such people? Has he ever mentioned any similar connection?”

Jester’s mouth went dry. “No!” she tried to keep her voice from rising to a squeak. “Uh, not anyone like that, no.” She didn’t even know why she had lied, but suddenly, she felt a rush of fear. For Caleb, for Beau, for all of them. She balled her hands into fists, trying to sound less afraid than she felt. “I _trust_ Caleb” she insisted. “He’d never hurt Beau, or any one of us, of his own free will.” Of this, at least, she was sure.

Dairon gave her a long, searching look. “It may not matter if it’s his own free will or not. It could be that - ” She broke off, eyes going wide, and shrank back into the shadows. Jester whirled, just in time to see a group of people passed by the door, light glimmering on the rich, embellished fabrics of their clothes, laughter ringing clear and bright.

Dairon clasped Jester’s forearm, fingers biting into the skin. “…I have no more time” she whispered, “I risk death for both of us every moment I am here. You have to find Beauregard, and save her. I’m afraid that they’ll - ”

But at that moment, Dairon’s eyes widened in panic, and she was leaping up into a crouch on the narrow rail with catlike grace, as the doors behind Jester swung open, spilling out several guests onto the balcony. At the very same moment, Jester was throwing out a spell in a panic, one hand going instinctively to the symbol of the Traveler pinned to the bodice of her dress.

By the time the laughing cluster of courtiers had spilled onto the balcony, a grey-winged pigeon was  fluttering up from the rail and to the roof of the palace, disappearing into the dark.

Jester dusted her hands off, giving the nearest drow lady – who was giving her a look of concern - as steady a smile as she could, turned on her heel, and marched back inside, already glancing around the room for Beau.

She couldn’t see her, but that was okay. It must be. Surely Jester could just Send her a message, and she would respond, and everything would be fine.

When she lost the first spell, she thought for a moment that she had been concentrating too hard on planning out her words to pay attention to the casting. But when she tried again, it was just the same; she felt the spell repelled by something, without even the quiet little click that meant the spell had found purchase in its target’s mind.

“Beau!” Jester whispered anyway, clutching her symbol and leaning against the wall. The sounds of the ballroom had turned to a dull roaring in her ears, pushed to the back of her mind. “Beau…Beau, I guess you can’t hear this. But I hope you’re okay, and I’m gonna go find the others, and get you back real quick. And if anyone hurt you, we’ll kick there ass, okay? Oh, and uh, if you see Caleb, tell him to not go evil or I’ll kick _his_ ass. No, I won’t really, so you know, don’t actually tell him that I guess? …Fuck, _balls_ , this is probably way over twenty-five words…hah, guess it’s not working anyways….sooo, I need to go find Fjord and Yasha and Caduceus and…ooh! Nott can send messages too! I’m gonna find you, okay? I promise I’ll find you. Anyway, ah… love from Jester.”

With trembling fingers, she set the symbol back in its place, and went to find Nott.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter this time but I'm trying for more frequent updates! Also this felt like a natural break point. 
> 
> Also, the previous chapters have undergone very minor edits regarding Astrid and Eodwulf's canon appearances, as of episode 64. But those are the only things I've changed in this fic, and I'm amazed at how canon compliant it remains. (Even when it's no longer canon-compliant I think I'll just AU it.)
> 
> Anyway I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's been reading and enjoying this fic! Your comments mean so much to me (especially the ones that are just like, yelling and capslock) 
> 
> <3


	7. Chapter 7

Things had not gone quite according to plan, so far. But if there was one thing that Astrid excelled at, it was improvising. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; she excelled at many things, and she knew it. But today, she thought as she dipped a hand into the pocket of her borrowed coat, fingertips brushing the little ceramic bottle, today her training would be put to the test. And as always, she planned to pass with flying colours.

She looked over at Eodwulf, disguised as Bren. That part had been…well, the word _distracting_ was one of those thoughts that were unthinkable, that she shied away from even in her own head. There was no privacy to be found in there, after all.

She would not be compromised. She would not fail like her weak sister who had last died in the dungeons here. She and Eodwulf had been embedded here longer, their cover was certain. Neither of them, she knew, could let any of this distract them. 

In and out, complete the mission. Obtain the artifact. Get to the Cobalt Soul monk, the spy. Both of them, in fact; torture one to make the other cooperate if necessary. Secure the younger one for questioning later. Beauregard. That part was done; she had been caught off-guard, at first, but she had recovered well. Astrid had even been able to borrow her face.

It had been made easier by the bottle, of course. The irony of that wasn’t lost on Astrid.  

It had been an unexpected blessing, the bottle. A young drow woman had attacked them in the streets of Rosohna, just three days ago. They had been on their way to meet their contact at the Conservatory, disguised as the wealthy Lady and Lord Vanephrion. Just a common thief, they had thought, unskilled and opportunistic. Astrid had dealt with her quickly, cutting her throat with one quick and discreet strike of her dagger. The killing felt good, a simple and familiar relief after all of the waiting they had been doing, playing at being model citizens of this place, insinuating themselves into society. It was all too easy, over in a moment, with Eodwulf – quick thinking on his part, he always knew just what she needed – whipping up an illusion so that passersby saw nothing.

But as soon as the woman had died, then things had become interesting. The illusion on her, a disguise, had vanished, and then… Astrid frowned a little, clenching her hand into a fist at her side, resisting the urge to look down at herself. There had been no sense in missing their contact to investigate, they had decided, back then. They had dumped the body in a barrel in an alleyway in less than a minute, including going through the pockets of the hooded robe she had been wearing. Not that she had much. Except that bottle. Astrid knew it was a powerfully magical object even before she had identified it, almost as soon as she touched it. So they had taken it, and left.

They should have dealt with the body there and then, Astrid knew now. That had been their mistake, and if they had been more foresighted, they might understand more.

Because when they came back, the body had gone.

But it didn’t matter now. Because they had what they wanted, and were about to get even more.

And now, the bottle had come in useful, holding Beauregard, and…

And Bren.

Bren…though that wasn’t necessarily strict orders, their old master would be pleased. He never did like it when a mess was left, loose ends remaining untied. That much, he had passed on to her.

Still, the way that Bren had looked had stirred something, shaking it up like silt at the bottom of a lake. She looked at Eodwulf now, disguised as Bren, and couldn’t help but feel it as he swept back a few locks of red hair from his face that had fallen out of the tie at the back of his head. Bren’s hair; she remembered suddenly how it had glowed like flame in the lamplight, those nights when it was just the three of them. And the firelight, that last night, when -

But she could think no further; she knew if she did, she would feel a sharp pain in the side of her head, and she had learned those places in her own mind that she couldn’t let herself touch, couldn’t let herself go near them. It was Eodwulf under there, anyway. Just her dear Wulf, wearing the face of a dead man. They had thought Bren dead for so long, after all, and soon he would be anyway, though not after the Assembly got his whole story out of him, breaking him apart piece by piece until it all spilled out. But Astrid wouldn’t be there. That wasn’t her job, after all. That wasn’t why she’d been sent here.

The Beacon. She forced herself back to the conversation at hand. Wulf was talking to the blue tiefling – Jester was her name, Astrid remembered - in a pitch-perfect impression of Bren’s voice. He always had been good at that; he had done impressions of both of them, made them laugh back then.

Jester tilted her head curiously, hands clasped, tail flicking side to side like she was up to some intrigue. “And why do you want to talk to Essek, Caleb?” She grinned. “Is it ‘cos you’re in love with him?”

“ _Nein_ , none of that!” said Eowdulf, turning a little pink in the cheeks in the exact way Bren always had. “Ah, no, I…wanted to speak to him, actually.” He lowered his head. “Magic stuff. I do not think you would understand.”

Astrid watched Jester’s eyebrows draw together. “You always let me sit in when the two of you did your “ _magic stuff_ ” before” she said, hands on her hips. Then her grin was back, and she was elbowing him in the side, with what looked like considerable strength; Eodwulf would probably have a bruise from it tomorrow. “You _do_ like him!” she squealed. “You two just wanna go off and hang around on your own, and - ” her eyebrows were wiggling furiously now, “ and do a bit of…” Astrid watched her make a hand gesture who’s meaning was extremely apparent. She frowned. Bren and the Shadowhand? Could it be? She had not expected seduction to be his primary mode of operation these days. But then again, she and Wulf didn’t talk about Bren. It was one of their unspoken pacts. It made things easier.

Nevertheless. he pointedly ignored the sharp little pinprick in her chest that it unexpectedly set off. She knew how to endure pain, after all; she was practically built of it. Not that there was any pain to endure. None at all.

“Well, alright, I’ll send him a message to come” said Jester, darting a glance around. Her eyes slipped over Astrid’s own, not making contact. But in that split second, Astrid read in them the alarming truth; somehow, Jester knew that she was not really Beauregard. Keeping her face perfectly impassive, she was quickly recalculating; it must be Dairon, she thought. A loose end, that one. One that might represent a higher priority than she had been thinking, especially if they were to win the trust of Bren’s little group.

Well. They had their work cut out for them, that was for certain, but she and Wulf would get what they wanted.

* * *

 

“Did you find anything up there?”

“Nope.”

“Shall I let you down?”

Beauregard bit back a sarcastic response, adjusting her weight on the giant cat’s paw on which she was perched. “No, not yet Caleb” she hissed instead, running her hands once more over the sealed edges of the circular trapdoor above her, at the very apex of their prison. If she was being honest, she hadn’t really expected to just be able to lift the thing; this was a magic bottle dungeon, after all, not the wine cellar back at her parents’ house.

But it was either this or go back to just sitting there, watching Caleb fuss and pace with ever-spiralling anxiety. Getting angry with him despite herself, and the two of them snapping at each other, or lapsing into silence. The silence was worse.

No, better this way. Even if there was no way out. She bit down on her lip, worrying at it as she was forced to acknowledge the truth; the rim of the round door sealed tight to the lip of the surrounding material, with a crack barely large enough to get her fingernails into, and when she pushed up against it with all her strength, it only made the hand beneath her dip and her balance wobble.

“Ah!” Caleb yelped in alarm as he hastened to steady the hand. “Careful, Beauregard. I am afraid I have no more of those healing potions. So, ah, don’t fall.” There was an apology in his voice.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Beau thought she could probably land on her feet at this height, but she didn’t particularly want to try her luck. She settled herself more steadily anyway, sitting cross-legged on the cat’s paw – the giant, spectral toe beans were oddly soft and comfortable, like sitting down on some cushions – and ran her hands along the join once more. Still nothing. It must be magically sealed, so there was probably no point. They had already considered trying to dispel it, but neither of them liked the possibility that it might destroy this little demiplane – if that was what it was – entirely, and them with it. It might even dump them out into who knows where in the outer planes, a possibility that Beau thought was probably worse than what they were being kept for otherwise. Caleb didn’t seem so sure about that, but had deferred to her that they should see about trying to open the door before anything else.

So much for that. She sighed, wondering if she should just give up. Without much hope, she ran both hands around the circular wall, where it sloped sharply downwards from the trapdoor at the top. It was smooth, impermeable as it had been at the bottom.

Except…no, it wasn’t, she realised. There was markings of some sort, marks carved so lightly into the not-stone that she could barely feel them, but they were there. She traced one with her finger; it was a letter, she realised, and furthermore, something about it was familiar, tugging at her memory. Long hours spent studying, back at the Cobalt Soul. When she ran her hand over it again, she found more letters, an inscription. Excitement sparked in her chest, despite herself. She reached for her goggles, but they weren’t there, and the soft glow of the cat’s paw was too dim to make out what was written there. “Caleb!” she yelled down. “I’ve found some writing! Send some light up here, will you?”

“You found…what? But that does not make sense, why would someone write something up there, where no one can - ”

“Just do it, Caleb. Light. …Please.”

“Oh, _ja_ okay…” there was the sound of shuffling, and a muttered command word, and suddenly the drift globe was coming up to meet her, illuminating everything with a glow that made her feel an acute pang of nostalgia for daylight. It would do, though; there was work to do.

“Thanks, Caleb” said Beau. “Wait, how were even you keeping so much stuff in that fancy formal coat of yours? Oh, never mind, you’re skinny as a piece of paper and practically concave. I forgot.”

“I mean, that is true, but hardly relevant right now” said Caleb, nervously. “What does it say, Beauregard? Can you read it? If not, I could let you down and give you my book, and you could take a copy, and I could cast - ”

“No, it’s fine” breathed Beau, tracing the letters with her fingertips once more. “I can read it.”

And she could; it was Deep Speech, written in the Elvish script in which it was usually transcribed. She remembered Deep Speech grammar had always been her least favourite, but she could read it easily enough. “It says” she squinted, “ _W_ _hen_ _two_ _are trapped and all is dark_ … uh, something about… oh yeah, okay. _Blood of_ _she_ _who made this place will open the way_.” She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It…sounds like a sort of safety mechanism, built in by whoever made it” said Caleb. He sounded disappointed. “If she, ah, accidentally got herself trapped inside, then she would be able to get out. Maybe.”

“And the one who made this place…is that Astrid?” she didn’t have to see him to imagine the slight flinch in Caleb’s expression at the name; he tried to keep it hidden, but it would be there. “She was the one who had it, after all.”

“I…do not think so, no. I have not seen Astrid in some time, obviously, but I do not think that the life of a _Vollstrecker_ involves making magical items like this. Far more likely, it was issued to her by the Cerberus Assembly when she was sent on this mission.”

Beau’s shoulders drooped. “And we don’t have her blood anyway.”

“ _Nein_ ” said Caleb, shortly. “We don’t.”

Perhaps if she had been able to get a punch in, break a nose of a lip and get some of Astrid’s blood on her knuckles…but no, she had been paralysed before she had had time. She had barely been able to put up a fight. And Dairon was still up there, if Astrid hadn’t killed her… Beau resisted, with difficulty, the urge to cry, her sudden excitement curdling to disappointment, to despair. Worse than before, for having momentarily had hope.

Instead, rage welled up inside her once again. She snarled a string of curses, making a fist and slamming it hard against the unyielding wall. Her knuckles were still bruised from the first time she had done this tonight, but the pain felt almost good, brought her clarity. She punched it again, and again and again until her knuckles were bleeding, eyes squeezed closed and burning with tears.

“Beauregard! Stop!”

“Shut the fuck up, Caleb!” she got out, through gritted teeth. “We’re gonna be trapped here forever, or, or they’re gonna torture us, and… it’s my _fucking_ fault, and I… I’m so…”

“No! Not that…Beau, look!”

Beau’s eyes flicked open, caught out by the wonder in his tone. When she did, she blinked a few times, in confusion.

The walls of the chamber were illuminated in flickering blue light, sparks rippling and arcing across it like lightning, even brighter than the light from the driftglobe. Here and there, they began to form what could almost be letters, before dissipating, changing and shifting too fast to follow.

The cat’s paw was lowering her down to the ground, and she jumped the last few feet, landing next to Caleb. “Wh…what?” she stared at him, gesturing at the walls. “Why’s it…doing that? What’d you do?”

“Nothing” said Caleb, giving her a strange look. He reached for her hand, turning it over to inspect her bloody knuckles. “But I…I think, ah…I think _you_ did.”

“ _What._ ” Beau looked down at her bloody hand, then back up at the walls. The letters were beginning to stay formed for longer now, little snatches of words discernible now and again in their ever changing mass. They were in Common, now, large and clear and easy to read.

Finally, a name emerged, and stayed there.

**_BEAUREGARD LIONETT_.**

Beau pressed her eyes closed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Aw man, why the fuck does it know my _surname?_ I don’t fucking tell anyone that. ‘Cept you guys, and that wasn’t even really by choice.”

“Beauregard, I think there are more important questions here…”

She swayed a little, laughing hollowly. “Yeah Caleb. Guess there are. I…” she broke off, as the letters began to change.

**_AND CALEB WIDOGAST_. **

“Hmm” said Caleb, looking distressed. “I…could understand _you_ , if it was your blood that activated the spell - ”

“Which I still don’t understand, by the way. What the fuck.”

“ _Ja_ , quite. But, why - ”

**_IT’S BEEN A WHILE._ **

“Um.” said Beau. “Hi?”

**_HEY_. _FIRST OF ALL, WELL DONE FOR WORKING OUT HOW TO ACTIVATE THE PROCESS_.**

“Um. Thanks?” said Beau.

**_YOU’RE WELCOME_.**

Beside her, Caleb shuddered. “Something is watching us, Beauregard… it’s _answering_ us.”

**_I PROMISE, THERE IS NO ONE HERE BUT THE TWO OF YOU._ **

At that, Beau felt a shiver run up her spine, for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate.

**_AND YOU’RE SAFE. FOR NOW_.**

She looked at Caleb. “…Well, that’s just ominous.”

Caleb nodded. “Cryptic _and_ threatening.”

She frowned, though. “But… it doesn’t actually _seem_ unfriendly yet. Maybe it can help get us out.”

**_I CAN, AS A MATTER OF FACT_. **

“…I have questions” said Caleb, narrowing his eyes.

**_I’LL ANSWER THEM._ _DON’T WORRY_. **

“Too late” muttered Beau.

**_IT’S_ _ALL_ _GOING TO BE OKAY. NOW, LISTEN UP, YOU TWO. BECAUSE I CAN ONLY SAY ALL THIS ONCE_. **

“Why only once?”

**_THERE ARE REASONS. JUST GO WITH IT, OKAY?_ **

Beau looked at Caleb, who was still wide-eyed and shaken. But there was something, some spark of the way he looked when given a new book to read, a big thick one full of spells he didn’t know. Perhaps he was thinking about calculated risks. And just like that, Beau began to feel hope again.

She gave Caleb’s arm a reassuring squeeze, and stared right at the wall. “All right. Tell us what you’ve got to say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long absence, I got into several new fandoms and started writing for those, but also Life has been incredibly busy lately....I still love this fic though and I'm finishing it!!!! I have Big Plans!!!!!! Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and more will be coming!!!!!


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